Who Knows How It Will End Up!
Last year I was tempted into the Oxfam bookshop in Oldham, which always has interesting collectibles on sale - I was strong enough in character yesterday to not go in when visiting Babylon Lite - and I purchased "Sapper's War Stories" for a modest few pounds. Art!
'Sapper' was the pen-name of one Herman Cyril McNeile, whom rose to the rank of Major in the Royal Engineers during the First Unpleasantness, and whom submitted short stories to the "Daily Mail" whilst serving. The British Army did not look kindly upon it's members openly writing anything that wasn't an official report, so his pseudonym came from his branch of the service, as the RE are universally known as 'sappers'.
There's no date of publication for this volume, and various dates are given in online resources, ranging from 1926 (for the first edition, which is what my copy is) to 1932. Bordering on a century old, anyway, and retelling events in a milieu one hundred and seven years old. It's not very valuable, in case you were thinking I might sell it and retire on the proceeds. Art!
Sapper's most famous creation, dated from 1920, and which made him a very successful author of the inter-Unpleasantness years. Also, I note that Sapper was awarded the Military Cross, one of those medals that one does not find at the bottom of cereal packets. Now, having read the second story in my volume "A Day Of Peace", I was wondering what anyone unfamiliar with the First Unpleasantness would make of it? Art!
If you are able to read the page here, then yes, this is how officers of the British Army conversed at the time, relentlessly chaffing themselves, frequently throwing in a bit of Latin, Greek or French, NEVER boasting about personal courage or bravery and dramatically understating everything. Art!
It's a rubbish photo that enlarging didn't help, so allow me to quote from it and incidentally boost the Word Count, which is a happy accident.
"A large object has fallen beside the sap leading out to Vesuvius crater. It is about the size of a rum jar , and is thought to be filled with explosive. It has been covered with sandbags and it's early removal would seem desirable, as the sap is frequently bombarded with aerial darts and rifle grenades."
'Sap' here is a narrow trench leading out into No Man's Land, usually terminating in a Listening Post where two or three men do duty listening to what mischief the Teutons might be up to. Art!
'Vesuvius crater' is a military in-joke. One of the lesser-known aspects of trench warfare, and one of the most horrid, was the creation of mines under enemy trenches. Literal mines, as in the ones created when digging for coal. Several hundred or thousand pounds of explosives would be placed in the end chamber, and when detonated a large crater would be formed. Hence naming the crater after a volcano. Art!
'Rum jar' refers to - you may be ahead of me here - jars of rum, which were held as trench stores, and which might be issued a tot per man when weather was cold or just before an attack. Art!
'S.R.D.' stands for 'Service Rum, Diluted', or amongst the cynical soldiery, 'Seldom Reaches Destination'. You can tell how large these containers are in the second picture. Robert Graves, in 'Goodbye To All That', tells of a sottish NCO whom had consumed the whole container himself and who showed up in the front line trench so inebriated that he fell flat. The livid officer present lined up his company and the whole unit marched over the fallen soldier, and probably happy to do so.
'Aerial darts and rifle grenades' means of the former, metal darts dropped from aircraft several hundred feet up. Art!
Ballistically shaped to remain point downwards, they would penetrate even helmets and kill whomever they hit. As for rifle grenades, these were relatively small explosives which had considerable range, and were an unpleasant novelty to the British when first encountered, as they had nothing like. Art!
They were used by the Teutons en masse, and the first warning they were being used would be when they exploded, as rifle fire was entirely unexceptional.
Well, there you go, I've explained about the first two pages of a story that goes on for about 30. Will we come back to this? Who knows!
It's Oakless
Like the folk on the 'Wooden Boat Forum', I cannot find the 'Mythbusters' episode where they tested the splinter effect of cannon-fire on pig carcases, to see if said splinters were dangerous or not. Their conclusion was that the velocity of the splinters was too low to cause injury. WBF objected! Art?
I found the episode! This is the cannon used, which wargamers immediately quibbled about, as it's a South Canadian Civil Unpleasantness cannon far smaller and firing a much lighter ball than the cannon used aboard ships of the line. Strike One. WBF, come on down!
That's a hard one to buy into as stated, and can't find the episode on the web for more details.
Oak splinters are as sharp as many knives, and I can throw a knife at as low as 100fps with lethal effect. Cannon balls hitting oak at 1000fps will throw splinters at closer to 900fps than 100fps. They'd lose velocity quickly, but even on a ship of the line, decks weren't very wide.
It also flies in the face of centuries of solid naval medical documentation of splinter wounds.
That last point was also made by the gamers. Strikes Two and Three!
I thought that the planking was on the light side and that the futtocks were too far apart.
The wood used was all kiln dried wood and probably had a very low moisture content.
Strike Four from WBF! Arrrrr Jim lad. Art!
"I got a bone to pick with 'ee, Jamie boy."
"Lawrence In Arabia" By Scott Anderson
Scotty has made his biography of Lawrence different by also salting the story with that of three other people, whom I'm going to be capricious about and not name, because I can be horrid that way. Art!
Scotty makes one of the cardinal sins of a historical writer; viewing the people of the past through a modern lens. You may not approve of how they thought or behaved, Scotty, but THAT IS HOW THEY THOUGHT AND BEHAVED.
He also lets his frothing hatred of the British come to the fore. According to him the British politicians were stupid, the British generals were stupid, the entire British army was stupid, the British people were stupid, the only British person not stupid was Lawrence, and did I mention how stupid the British were?
Definitely going into the 'Back To A Charity Shop' pile once finished.
Rather a shame, as he teases out the politics and intrigues of the First Unpleasantness in the Middle East quite well.
The Burning Question Of The Day
Stop your grinnin' and grab your linen. Art!
Wait, what?
I have no idea. Nor do I care. The only person I might pay attention to on this issue is the Youtube vlogger 'Wildbeare', who regularly camps out in the wild and has to grin and beare it.
Right, time to go brew up a stew. Laterz!
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