The Angels of War — a Novel of World War I
November 11, 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the end of World War 1. To commemorate this event, Pantheon has published my war novel “The Angels of War” in an all-new edition. It tells the true story of four brave young women — three British, one American — who defied the British army medical staff by setting up a dressing station right at the front line, under constant threat of German artillery and gas attacks. I discovered the dairies of two of these girls, Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm, while doing research at the Imperial War Museum in London, and was struck by the incredible bravery of these women as they fought to save wounded soldiers from both sides. Even more astounding was the fact that they were financially supported by a Belgian nobleman, Baron de T’Serclaes, who fell in love with Elsie. Though the girls were nearly killed in a vicious German gas attack, they miraculously survived, and Elsie became a Baroness in the end. An incredible story!
Following is an excerpt from the book, after Elsie, Marie, Dorothy and Helen have stolen an RAMC ambulance to set up their medical post right near the front line, in an abandoned house in the village of Pervyse.
Chapter Eight - The Poste de Secours, Pervyse
Dorothy had just barged into the barn, her face flush with excitement. “Is that horse still out there?” she cried breathlessly.
“What? You mean, Mougin’s horse?” Mairi said. “Yes, I just fed it this morning.”
Dorothy was suddenly in a rush. She looked around, searching for something, and then asked, deadpan, “How do I look?”
Elsie was stunned. “How do you look?” she said. “What do you mean, how do you ..”
“Never mind,” Dorothy said impatiently, “I’ll be back shortly,” and stormed out of the door.
The three looked at each other. “What was that all about?” Mairi asked.
“Has she lost her mind?”
“Perhaps she saw something …”
“But what?”
“I wish I knew …” Helen said, and went to the window, just in time to see Dorothy flying past on Celine, Mougin’s brown mare.
“Dorothy!” Helen cried in shock.
“What is she doing!”
“This isn’t the time to go out joy riding,” Elsie said furiously, and raced outside, just in time to see Dorothy thundering out of the village in the direction of No Man’s Land.
“Do-ro-thy!” Helen screamed with all her might, but Dorothy was already well out of earshot.
“What on earth did she see?” Elsie cried again, her anger now being replaced by a terrible foreboding, and ran into the house and up the stairs. As soon as she reached the upper floor she grabbed the binoculars that Dorothy had left and caught her galloping at full tilt. She was heading in the direction of the breastworks marking the nearest Allied position, less than half a mile away.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered.
“Where is she going?” Mairi asked, as she and Helen joined Elsie on the roof.
“Look for yourself,” Elsie said and handed her the binoculars. “She’s heading for the British lines.”
“What? But why?”
“I think she saw something. But for the life of me, I have no idea what it is.”
* * * * * *
Though only 20 years of age, Obergefreiter Karl Höchst had a gift; a truly extraordinary eye for complex mathematical equations, such as triangulating the fall of shot. In simple language, that meant being able to calculate the trajectory of a shell, and correlating the anticipated point of impact using abstract references on a two-dimensional grid. This unique talent was not lost on his superiors in the field, who had promptly transferred him to one of the artillery battalions. Which is why, on this fine April afternoon, he found himself overlooking the northern half of the Ypres Salient as the lead artillery observer for the 10th Artillery Battalion — part of the corps that formed the rightmost flank of the Duke’s Fourth Army.
Karl stretched, shifted his position slightly and trained his field glasses on one of the small villages down below in the valley. To his surprise, a small figure riding a horse leapt into view. What the hell, Karl thought; a dispatch rider, a British courier? On horseback, no less? Shaking his head, Karl grabbed the field phone. Obviously, the British must be getting desperate, sending out their messengers on horses. Well, he would quickly disabuse them of that notion. Karl cranked the lever and was instantly rewarded with a burst of static, followed by a brusque order: “Melden!” Report in!
“Ein Englischer Kurier!” Karl yelled.
“Koordinaten,” came the laconic reply.
Karl quickly checked the map grid, calculated the position of the rider versus the speed of movement, and rattled off a set of numbers.
“Bleib am Apparat,” the unseen artillery officer replied; stay on the line.
For a moment Karl wondered if the officer had heard him correctly; surely no one could take numbers down so fast. But then he heard a dull sound, like a muffled explosion, followed by the familiar tearing sound of a shell in flight. He looked up and thought he could glimpse the giant, brass-hulled projectile as it traveled through the atmosphere at a speed of almost 500 km per hour. Then, a huge geyser of flame, smoke and dirt that gouged a deep hole in the ground in the field below. It missed the rider by at least a hundred meters.
“Na?” the voice on the phone barked.
“Zwei grad’ nach Rechts,” Karl said crisply, two degrees to the right, making the calculation in his mind as he did so, and held his breath until the next salvo. He was beginning to enjoy himself. This was much more challenging than calling fire on something as stupid as a church tower, or a house, or a barn in which some idiot had seen something move. It was far more challenging than bracketing a moving vehicle, which as Karl could tell you in scientific detail, had a consistent rate of movement, further restrained by the direction of the road on which it was traveling.
Besides, if truth be told, Karl didn’t like calling down fire on vehicles. Usually this meant ambulances, and something deep inside his soul told him it was wrong to shoot at vehicles that carried men who had already been shot, and probably would die before the end of the day anyway. But this — a brave rider on a horse, galloping at top speed over open terrain — this was a challenge his math teacher back at the Sankt Anna Gymnasium would have been proud of. And to add to the sport, the British courier was quite obviously an accomplished rider, Karl could see that, having ridden a few farm horses himself. Every time a shot fell, the rider made an abrupt course correction, though never quite the same: left, then right, the horse giving it all, its flaxen mane flying, pounding the field with his strong hoofs, sending big clumps of earth into the air.
Clearly, the barbaçon was at the end of its tether. Its mouth and flanks were covered with flecks of foam and its breath came in raspy gasps, yet still the mare held on as if somehow it realized that its life — and that of its rider — depended on getting inside the breastworks, now only a hundred yards distant.
“Come on, baby, come on,” Dorothy cried, urging the Belgian beast along, “we’re almost there, just a few seconds more, come on now,” and the horse responded, digging deep into itself to find whatever remained of its strength.
Another shot fell. The rider quickly veered left, just as Karl finished calling in a new set of coordinates, the officer cursing on the other end of the line. But in that moment something fell away, a hat of some sort, and the head of the rider seemed to explode. It blossomed into a dark halo, a halo of long black hair, and it was then that Karl realized that the rider was a young woman, and his heart stopped.
“Was nun?” the voice on the phone wanted to know.
One part of Karl’s brain had the answer. It had detected the rhythm of the evasive maneuvers and knew, beyond a doubt, where the rider would be in the next ten seconds. He could see it as clear as the light of day, the incoming shell, the explosion of light, shattering woman and beast into oblivion, and his mind had the numbers to back it up. But the other side of Karl’s brain, the brain of the child that had served as an altar boy and sung in the choir and read the Children’s Bible his grandfather had given him, suppressed the thought.
“Es tut mir leit,” he said in a flat voice. “Der Kurier ist verschwunden.” The courier is gone.
“Verdammt,” came the response, and the line went dead.
Dorothy could see the soldiers in khaki right ahead of her. Some were running back and forth, others were training their rifles, until her cap blew off and they saw her long flowing hair, and that gave them pause. She closed her eyes, praying that the bombardment wouldn’t resume, whispering to the horse, watching the hooves thundering away below her. And then suddenly they were inside the camp. She flew past the guards who stared at her with open mouths, gently reined in the horse and dropped to the ground. Right above her, the Royal Union Flag of Canada snapped in the strong Atlantic breeze.
“You’re here!” she cried. “You’re finally here!”
* * * * * * *
“The Angels of War” is now available on Amazon as a book or Kindle e-book.
