Category Archives: The Angels of Mons

Arthur Conan Dolye gets a Letter from beyond the Grave

The Angels of Mons, , ,
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Angel of Mons is packed full of fascinating, real events. I am sure you will enjoy how I have woven into a miraculous novel. Seeing bits and pieces of it is a good way to introduce the stories it tells.

Some of the story takes place away from the battlefield in England. To my amazement, I discovered that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s brother in-law, Malcolm Leckie, was the chief medical officer for the very company of soldiers (Royal Fusiliers, Company C) I had to write about. Captain Leckie was wounded at the battle of Mons, dying six days later in a German prisoner of war camp. Here is what happened at the Doyle home the night of his death. A friend of the family was practicing “automatic writing”. Conan Doyle is the speaker.

Lily entered into trance more deeply than she ever had before. The whites of her half-closed eyes stared vacantly. The four of us stayed where we were so as not to interfere with what was happening (. . . .) Before my eyes, the message. The slant of the letter, the bold stroke. A pen in the hands of a military medical man. The horrid punctuation for which he was infamous. I hastily read the first words to myself—“I am dead in body. Nevermore shall we meet in the flesh”—my heart came near to bursting, tears rose, blurring my vision. “One moment, please.” I wiped the tears, wiped my fogged reading glasses.

I skimmed the document. I said to myself, then aloud, “Malcolm tells us that he is dead in body, but he lives on. His writing this message confirms that his soul lives on.”

The chapter then describes the message and how the event affected Conan Doyle’s life. This is the beginning of exciting events in England. It is worth mentioning that many Conan Doyle biographies describe this event. I did not make it up, though I elaborated on it. Read to find out what happened. Let me know what you think.

The novel is available on Amazon, and Kindle. For a signed copy, order directly through the publisher, Singing Bone Press.

 

Jeanne d’Arc in “The Angel of Mons”

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Often in fiction a single sentence inspires an entire chapter. Such was the case with this chapter. In a book entitled Heroes and Legends of World War I the author mentions a company of soldiers at Mons who take a path that ends in a forest where they are surrounded by Germans. An angel guides them out late at night. When my wife and I visited Mons in 2008 a historian took us to the place where he claimed that event took place. In my book, Chapter 7, “Jeanne d’Arc and the Road Through”,I move the event to the Forest of Mormal which is between Mons and Le Cateau and expanded it greatly.

Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc

From across the Field Came the Barking of Dogs and Lantern Light

The sound of barking traveled from dog to dog, farm to farm, field to field, coming ever closer.
The men dug on. Walter Sage caught a glint of light beyond the line and to the south.
“Something’s astir,” he whispered. “Coming across the field.” He asked, “Peasant with a lantern?”
“Where?” Jessop asked. “German spy?”
“Back the way we marched,” Hardy said. “Someone’s coming. Maybe the peasants don’t know massed armies are on the way, right in this bloody fool of a Frenchman’s path.”
“I say he’s Belgian,” said Jessop.
“Belgian, French. Leave it behind, you irritation,” groused Sage.
“Farmer coming to look after his fields, see who’s stealing his crops. Probably carrying a club, ready to strike,” observed Lang. “Heard our digging. After his buried treasure, his francs and gold. We’ll call to him when he gets near.”
“Maybe he can show us the way, lead us to the French gals with the wiggle-waggle in their walk,” said the lascivious Henry. “Or the way to the nearest estaminet. I could use a pint of ale, bottle of wine. I’m parched.”
Taking up the strain, William Sage said, “Maybe this is the enchanted forest where the water tastes like wine. But shouldn’t we shout the farmer a warning. Who speaks French?”
“Vous-les vous!” said Jessop.
“That’s no warning,” said Sage.
“At least he knows somebody’s here,” said Gabriel. “That’s all we need him to know.” Then, putting on a fake French accent, he continued, “The Germans are coming this way. There is a war. Hide your family and flocks in the forest, if you know it well enough.”
“Look at that, will ye?” said Walter Sage.
“He’s coming right toward us,” Jessop said.
Walter whispered, “ It ain’t a man. It’s a shepherdess. Her dress? See her crook?”
“Looking for her lost sheep,” said Gabriel.
“Or turnips for her dinner. We passed a vegetable patch a while back,” Nancarrew said.
“Little Bo Peep, she lost her sheep and didn’t know where to find them,” recited Howard Lang.
“Leave them alone, and they’ll come home, something, something, something behind them,” added Hardy.
Objects Jessop, “Wagging their tails. Nursery rhymes. My God! Have we come to infancy and the nursery?”
“A will-o-the-wisp it is,” hissed Walter Sage. “Do they have elves in France, too?”
“Pixies? They are small. She is human size.”
“She’s coming fast, must be running!” exclaimed private Godley.
Alan Hardy observed, “But the lamp holds steady. No up and down. No swaying side to side.”
The men stopped digging and stood dumbfounded, jaws agape, eyes wide.
“Faster than we can run!” Hardy said. Clearly a woman, the figure passed to the left of the trenching line, not ten yards from the men, toward the forest. “She doesn’t notice us, with all the scraping, shoveling, dirt flying about. And our voices,” he concluded.
Suddenly the light from the lantern flared, encircling the woman in fire.
“She’s ablaze. Skirt must ‘a’ caught from the lantern!” said Jessop in a loud whisper.
“A French peasant nothing! Look at ‘er. Wings, by God! Look at ‘er close. She’s a bloody angel!” said Walter Sage.
In an instant the light became bright as lightning, she within a shell of light, the light
obscuring her features. The angel, or spirit, substantial as an actress on a limelight lit stage.
“She’s real, God bless us!” said Jessop.
“Bloody funny to me,” said Walter Sage. “Looks like a Gibson girl with wings.”
“When did you ever see a picture of a Gibson girl, you bloody codger?”
Before Sage answered, Howard Lang rubbed his eyes. “I see her, too!”
Sage: “No white gown. No sandals. She’s in armor. Sword in scabbard, shield on left arm, steel helmet under her right, the lantern in her right hand. No gold band around her hair. Blimey.”
“I see the white wings, too. Jeanne d’Arc!” exclaimed Henry Sanders, amazed.
“John Dark? Who’s that?” asked Jessop.
“You old mechanic, its Joan of Arc,” said Sergeant Sanders.
“You’re going daft. No sleep, no drink, no food, no brains left to think with,” said Jessop.
“You should know better.”
The angel turned toward them, her features drowned in the light’s intensity.

****

Then what happened? To find out, the good news is that the book is now available on Amazon as a paperback and on Kindle.

You might wonder why Joan is not referred to as St. Joan. It is because she was not canonized until 1922 at Notre Dame in Paris. Sarah and I were there on Wednesday, August 6. Here is a picture of her statue.

 

 

 

We are in Belgrade, Serbia where the first shots of World War I were fired

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At this moment my wife, Sarah Barker, and I are in Belgrade, Serbia visiting sites associated with the first days of the First World War. The massive fortification at the confluence of the Sava and Danube Rivers, and the vast plane that spreads out across what was then Hungry gives a good idea of the Serbian defense at the start of the war. In the years that followed Serbia, like much of Europe, suffered the horrors of war, which its fortification could not withstand.

While no one was certain when war in Europe would break our, or even which countries would take pafortean_times_736_8rt, it was certain that there would be a war. Germany was fully armed, equipped, and staffed. It had a conscripted army trained and ready for battle. The countries of the Balkans and Austria likewise had small armies at the ready. France had plans for offensive and defensive action. England was similarly prepared.

Germany and Austria only awaited a pretext. The killing of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and his wife was that pretext. On July 28, 1914 Austro-Hungry fired the first shots of the war against Serbia.

This turned out to be the moment of truth for my Vickers teams, the Ruffians and the Victors, for on August 4 King George V declared war on Germany.

The Vickers teams who went to Belgium had to have enlisted in the British Expeditionary Force at least six months before the war in order to complete their training. Many had been in the army for several years already. They brought their training to the field of battle. They meet, train, compete, and are gotten ready for war.

On the Firing Range and Fields at Hythe and Grantham

(from Chapter Two, The Angel of Mons)

The soldiers trained. The squads practiced maneuvering in open country, ranging through every kind of terrain. They raced in full service kits. Calisthenics. Stamina, dexterity, speed. Built their bodies. And minds. Among the recent recruits—six months in training boys and men became soldiers. The veterans, who had a natural contempt for recruits, overcame it, and even came to like them. Those new to His Majesty’s army grew accustomed to the routines and rigors of army life. Their fear of their instructors and the veterans diminished. They knew they could depend on each other.

Catchpole complained, “I’ve been drilled to death. I dream about the weapon’s parts. They dance before me, singing and cavorting. They replace the lovely girls of my dreams, the delights of the dance hall, much to my regret.”

His colleague in mischief, Palmer said, “Drilled to distraction. I have forgotten everything else about life. I will kill Germans just to get even for the torments I have already endured. If not for them, I would be living a life of ease, posted to some sweet place in the colonies, eating well, playing cricket, better yet, polo, going to parties, romancing the ladies, lazing in the tropical sun.”

On the firing range the instructors timed each action, scored each shot, each man, each team, for speed and accuracy always needing improvement.

In the field the soldiers practiced sighting, elevating mechanisms, searching fire, distribution of fire, searching with distribution, fixed fire, correcting measurement error fire, volume of fire, accuracy of fire, sustained, indirect, overhead, and plunging fire. The Vickers trainees rehearsed enfilade and frontal fire, known distance, field, and combat fire, extended drill order firing, and control. The gunners fired in formation and at formations. They fired by squad, platoon, and company. They practiced as squad and platoon skirmishers, squad in column and platoon in column, platoon advancing in thin lines, squad and platoon rushes. Fired at every formation in every likely terrain. Mastered spotting hidden and lurking targets. Their eyes sharpening, their senses awakening to signs of enemy presence and movements.

 

St. George! In the Flesh!

The Angels of Mons,

A sample from Chapter 12: St. George and the Angels of the Dark Cloud

imagesSt. George in the Flesh!

All up and down our ragged line those still able to raise their voices shouted like men in a madhouse, “St. George! In the flesh! St. George! Come to do for England!”

“God save us!”

“Sweet saint, I’ll worship at your feet forever.” Some nearly wept. Heavenly reinforcements. And the soldiers about cried in relief, “Heaven’s knight, save us.” An instinctive moaning and involuntary sobbing, breath drawn deeply and quickly expelled.

Seemingly in reply to our cries the phantom warriors roared the ancient salutation, a summoning shout, though in speech of Chaucer’s day:

“Sente George! The longe bowe and the stronge bowe.”

The voices of all, as in chant or call, resounded above the shrieks and blasts of the artillery, machine guns, and rifles. “Comen we to saufe merrie Englonde!”

“Joynen as a bretherhede!”

“The bowe and the swerd, the launce and the pike!”

In words and speech closer to what we spoke, we heard the same pledge of aid. Their bloodcurdling yells died away. The officers of the King’s Own Something called out commands. The drummers beat the signals to the troops. The soldiers faced straight ahead. As if we weren’t there. As if they were real while we were not.

The celestial soldiers and cavalry covered the field, devouring the Germans before them. Blasts of horns and trumpets assailed the ear, fifes and drums tore the air, beat louder and louder until it seemed we were in the midst of interminable thunder.

 

In The Angel of Mons St. George and his horde of angels save the British not only at Mons, but again at the next battle. In reality, the fact that the British Expeditionary Force survived those two battles is considered vey much a military miracle. All the reason I needed to have St. George help again. This passage appears in “St. George and the AngeIs of the Dark Clouds” I had two scenes in mind, two ways I wanted St. George to save my Vickers machine gun crews. So I separated them, assigned them to two locations, being that there were only two Vickers guns for the entire company of one hundred soldiers. I had the Victors fighting here along a stone fence line. Elsewhere and later St. George saves the Ruffians when they and the company band—the musicians–are trapped in a quarry. This appears in the preceding chapter, “The Quarry, St. George, and the Angels of the Golden Mist of Salvation.”

 

PUBLISHED: The Angel of Mons

The Angels of Mons,

The Angel of Mons: A World War I Legend is now in print. You can buy it on Amazon by putting in the title. Or, for a signed copy, e-mail me. Now is the time to read the book, share with your friends about it, and spread the word.

The centenary of the angel’s appearance occurs on August 23, 2014. It will be widely commemorated in Mons, Belgium on that date. My wife and I will be there to take part and report.

People ask where I came up with the idea for the novel. In 1978 I read a paragraph in The Book of Lists that told the story. The description made me want to write the story.

Following the battle of Mons, Belgium, on August 26 (sic), 1914, the British Expeditionary Force was in retreat and pursued by a unit of German cavalry. Expecting certain death, the British turned and saw to their astonishment a squadron of phantom cavalry between them and the German cavalry. The German horses were terrified and stampeded in all directions. From the German side came an account that their men refused to charge a point (where the British line was broken) because of the presence of a large number of troops. According to Allied records, there was not a single British soldier in the area. An army chaplain recorded that he had heard accounts of the apparition from a brigadier general and two of his officers. The retreat was successfully accomplished, and soldiers of both armies believed that they had seen a spectral army of angels.

Now you can read this amazing story.

At Amazon you can read a description of the book, see what is said on the back cover, look inside at the Table of Contents, and part of Chapter One.

After you read the book, please lead others to it by reviewing and rating The Angel of Mons on Amazon and Goodreads. I would greatly appreciate it.

My radio appearance on Radio Unnameable

The Angels of Mons, ,

On July 11 I spent from midnight until three a.m. in a radio conversation with Bob Fass of WBAI’s (New York) Radio Unnameable talking about my new novel, The Angel of Mons: A World War I Legend. Bob is a radio legend, being the subject of the award-winning documentary by the same name as his program. Bob Fass revolutionized late night FM radio by serving as a cultural hub for music, politics, and audience participation for nearly 50 years. My friend, poet Michael Castro, who grew up on Long Island, credits Fass with opening and supporting his thinking when he was in high school long ago.

Bob’s interest in the novel comes from his strong stance in opposition to war. We discussed the opening days of the war, the Battle of Mons being among the earliest and most important. The main feature of the novel is that it was widely believed that St. George and a horde of angels fought on the side of the British, saving the army from extinction and an early victory for Germany. If the British had fallen, it is likely that the war would have been short and the face of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa very different than what it became. There would have been no Great War, but a Brief War.

Bob and I discussed the history of war as a subject for literature beginning with the Iliad and coming to the novels of Hemingway, Dalton Trumbo (Johnny Got His Gun), and Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. I told Bob that I had written my Master’s thesis on four novels, the tetralogy entitled Parade’s End, by Ford Madox Ford. My interest in World War I was kindled by that study.

We talked about my novel differing from other war novels significantly in its tone and approach. While there is violence and brutality in it, because angels play a major role, the novel has the qualities of a fantasia, with lyrical and poetic language. It plays freely with what happens, since angels can do anything. There is beauty and invention in the descriptions.

In the course of the three hours I read several passages from The Angel of Mons.

You can listen to the interview by going to Radio Unnameable for July 11—scroll down quite a way. (We start with the song from and talk about my book The Last Eleven Days of Earl Durand.) The program will be available through July 24. There are generous portions of music, all about war, in between our conversation.

The Legend that Sustained the British Home Front in World War One

The Angels of Mons

The one hundredth anniversary of the appearance of St. George on the battlefield at Mons, Belgium in the first encounter between the British and the Germans, and his saving the British army from annihilation will be commemorated on August 23 with official ceremonies. As poet and social historian, I  magnify the legend in The Angel of Mons: A World War I Legend, (Singing Bone Press, $19.95) making it a tale of awe and mystery. Sarah and I attend the ceremonies in Mons on the 23rd. Two days later we will attend ceremonies in Le Cateau, France, the second battle between the British and the Germans. The survival of the British was a military miracle. In the novel, this is accounted for again by St. George’s aid.

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the Angel of Mons

The Angels of Mons

The Hermetic Order is important in the world of esoteric societies because of its principle members. Many are known to the history of esoteric practices. Most important are MacGregor Mather and William Butler Yeats. MacGregor Mather life’s work was to bring the Western Mystery Tradition and angelic magic to life. His influence is wide-spread. Chief of the Second Order of the Golden Dawn and Magus Major, Keeper of the Vault, he wrote almost all the important Golden Dawn teachings and documents transmuted a dry system into one of the most powerful the world had ever known. He interpreted the Order’s Z Documents on methods and techniques for invocation, skrying, and divination. Mather taught himself Hebrew, Latin, French, Celtic, Coptic and Greek so he could study ancient texts on mystical practices. Mather created the Tarot’s symbolism.

Next week: Yeats, Hierophant of the Isis Lodge of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. In the The Angel of Mons these people receive the message of angelic intervention at Mons and Le Cateau. See what happens then.

Why I love ”the wickedest man in the world”

The Angels of Mons, , ,

Aliester Crowley was initiated into the Outer Order of the Golden Dawn in 1898 by the group’s leader, MacGregor Mathers. The ceremony took place at the Isis-Urania Temple in London, where Crowley took the magical name, “Frater Perdurabo”, meaning “Brother I shall endure to the end.”

A senior Golden Dawn member became his personal tutor in ceremonial magic and the ritual use of drugs. He performed the rituals of the Goetia,[ A year later he was expelled from the order, not enduing to the end, at least as a member. In the ultimate sense, he did continue dark practices for most of the rest of his life, establishing his own religious order and attracting many adherents.

In the history of the occult Aliester Crowley, was referred to as “the wickedest man in the world.”

For the purpose of my novel, The Angel of Mons, I am grateful that he belonged to the Order of the Golden Dawn. The book has a chapter on the reaction of the Order—William Butler Yeats, leader, and other prominent members–to St. George’s intervention in the Battle of Mons. I wanted a chapter in which the reaction of an occult order would be explosive. What better than to have a confrontation between Yeats, a practitioner of benign magic, and Crowley, the master of dark magic? Read the book (soon to be published) to see what happens.

Because Crowley fit so nicely with what I needed, I love the “wickedest man in the world.”

Why I disparaged and misrepresented the writer Arthur Machen

The Angels of Mons, , ,

When I began planning the novel The Angel of Mons: A World War I Legend I wanted it to extend beyond the battlefield and present the effects of the apparition on the esoteric, spiritualist, occult, and psychical societies in England. I especially hoped to find a way to have William Butler Yeats be a major character.

The source of the legend of the Angel of Mons was not reports of sightings from soldiers on the battlefield. The source was a story, The Bowmen, Arthur Machen wrote and was published in the Evening Standard.

I had the good fortune to discover that at one time the writer, Arthur Machen, had belonged to The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Yeats was the Order’s leader and head. Thus, a connection between Yeats and the Angel of Mons.

To work Machen into the novel I played several writer’s tricks. First, by 1914, when the war started, Machen was no longer a member of the Golden Dawn. So I switched the time of his membership and his standing in the Order. Secondly, to make the coincidence of his short story and his membership compelling, I introduced conflict and betrayal. Thus, I misrepresented and maligned a perfectly good writer. To see how I did this, read the book, soon to appear. Stay tuned.