by Paul Almond
In the gloriously restored city of Ypres (Wipers) we stayed at Old Tom’s and attended the evening sounding of “The Last Post” at the Menin Gate with some three hundred onlookers (and this was not during a school holiday). I’m happy to see that the great interest in WWI continues. Afterwards, Joan and I spent a liquid evening at a café with British veterans on pilgrimages of their own — some do this annually, in fact. The beautiful Cloth Hall, restored at immense expense and now a museum, provided pictures and examples of life at the Front in that Great War for Civilization, as it was known at the time.
At Newfoundland Park, near Beaumont-Hamel, we saw a fine trench layout showing how close the enemy lay across No Man’s Land. The Newfoundland Regiment had attacked and within half an hour more than 90 percent became casualties. Their very human Newfoundland museum we liked best of all; certainly it outdid the impersonal one at Vimy, obviously put together by bureaucrats.
As to my chapters on the wounded, rather than rely on my imagination, no matter how vivid, I borrowed phrases and descriptions, rearranged of course, from those who knew and saw such misery: Vera Brittain’s wonderful Testament of Youth, and some of the actual descriptions recounted in Lynn MacDonald’s, The Roses of No Man’s Land. Tim Cook’s splendid history, At the Sharp End, manages to encapsulate the horror of gas-gangrene wounds so well, I have with his permission borrowed some of his language also. His second volume, Shock Troops is equally engrossing. We should all of us revisit what mankind actually went through during that terrible period, and thus do our part to prevent future wars.
The dialogue in the Canon Scott scene I adapted largely from his own definitive book, The Great War as I Saw It, published by F.D. Goodchild Company, Toronto in 1922. He too suffered shell-shock after his wounding at Amiens. Lois and Carl Hayes again provided me with details of genealogical backgrounds, and another cousin, Elton Hayes, checked my Shigawake chapters.
The main sources of written material are, of course, Library and Archives Canada and the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, both of which helped on my annual spring visit. But in my research, I was shocked to find that many European historians ignored Canadian successes. Thank goodness for Pierre Berton’s Vimy!
Leslie Ann Ross, Psy.D., an old family friend and senior director of a Child Trauma Centre in Los Angeles, works with combat veterans at the Veteran’s Administration there. She gave me a thorough analysis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, helping me with my father’s “shell-shock”. I must also pay tribute to Prof. Paul Piehler who helped me with Eric’s descent and rebirth, as patterned after Dante’s Divine Comedy. Duff Crerar, author of that stunning Padres of No Man’s Land, has continued to be a warm supporter of my writing, and I cannot thank him enough for the extra time he took guiding me in Uncle Jack’s footsteps, and even reading the manuscript.
My desire to keep this book short is running amok here, as I insist on thanking my many readers who have so often offered more elegant phrases, new ideas, minor corrections and important changes: writer Rex King from her houseboat on the waterways of England near Nottingham, textbook whizz and novelist Diana Colman Webster whom I met sixty years ago in Oxford, as I did the fine director, Peter Duffell, who also helped prepare my battlefield trip with many references. Rev. Susan Klein has read all six books so far and encouraged me ceaselessly; Captain Timothy Winegard, still in the military and then working towards a DPhil at Oxford University, gave valuable input. Retired diplomat Nick Etheridge has scandalously sharp eyes in spotting anachronisms, and is a faithful critic. British writer David Stansfield, a new friend, went through the whole book painstakingly adjusting bits of prose. The grandson of my own English teacher at Bishop’s College School, Louis Evans, himself now teaching English on the Gaspe Coast, followed in his ancestor’s footsteps by helping, and even my son Matthew took me to task on an earlier version, causing me to rewrite the first chapters furiously. I thank them all.
I would also like to acknowledge the contributions of Corel’s Canadian Word Perfect, the superb word processor by which I wrote all six books, and Dragon Naturally Speaking, which permitted me, during daily walks, to talk these stories into a tape recorder and then on its own type the results out as I prepared my coffee.
A couple of personal notes: I was delighted to see that Uncle Jack’s burly roommate in The Chaplain, Harry Burstall, in this war become Commander of our Corps Artillery and later of the Canadian Second Division. And also my old metaphorical chum, EWB (Dinky) Morrison, the Boer War correspondent whose book With the Guns was at my side during the writing of that previous manuscript, followed Harry to be General Officer Commanding the Royal Artillery Canadian Corps, and then was largely responsible for the barrage at Vimy Ridge that broke the Germans back. He was knighted 1919. I’d like to add that Edmund Blunden and JRR Tolkien fought in the assault on Regina Trench, and Saki, the great short story writer (Lance Sergeant H.H. Munro) was killed by a sniper there.
While I wrote in the Old Homestead, Francine Senneville tirelessly prepared our noon dinners. Joan came to Shigawake from time to time to encourage and inspire me; she is the force behind this series of books. Her love and kindness has nourished me through the periods when I had no idea how to start, and then worse, how to get it all finished. These books are dedicated to her, but I would be remiss without placing special emphasis upon her help and encouragement. And of course, my new friend Richard Dionne, of Red Deer Press, who works under the umbrella of Fitzhenry & Whiteside, deserves my undying thanks for having rescued The Alford Saga, and who will publish the next two books as well.
In conclusion, I found this the hardest to write of the eight volumes in The Saga. To read, as I did, one hundred plus books, and to learn that so many thousands of young men, all “flowers of their nation”, were wiped off the face of the earth, their rich lives wasted, often their last days spent in the most horrific conditions of lonely pain one could ever imagine. I tried not to let these feelings overwhelm my writing as I endeavoured to recount with honesty this story of my father and his friends, dead or alive, who did their best for what they believed in at the time, and to show, as well as the devastation, a few bright spots in their brave lives.
Paul Almond,
Shigawake, Quebec
Praise For The Alford Saga
“If you like your Canadian history fast and furious, a crisis on every page, you will enjoy this film-on-paper by director Paul Almond. This story is entertaining and heart-throbbing.”
—The Globe and Mail
“Moving, fascinating, informative, and involving ... readers are in for an extraordinary treat.”
—The Gaspé Spec
“The Alford Saga may well go on to become one of our more important literary oeuvres, considering both the epic and historical nature of the subject matter, as well as the easily accessible prose style employed by its nationally prominent author.”
—The Westmount Examiner
“Can you talk about thrill-a-minute Canadian history? You can now. Paul Almond has worked for many years as a TV and film director, and his skill shows in the drama and pacing of this first-rate read.”
—Carole’s BookTalk
“I believe this one should be placed into the hands of every young student learning the history of Canada... ”
—Mrs. Q Book Addict
Other Books in the Bestselling Alford Saga
THE DESERTER
Imagine you’re in a swaying hammock on a British man-o’war around 1800, riding out a harsh spring storm in a deserted estuary. Behind those high red cliffs lie a hundred miles of uncharted wilderness. If you jump ship and are caught, you will be branded a deserter — subject to death by one thousand lashes. What can you bring to help you survive? Within minutes, the ice-strewn waters will freeze your body and claim your soul. Even if this were your one chance for a life in the New World, would you jump?
Thomas Manning did, and his leap into uncertainty begins the epic tale of a pioneer family, one of the many who built our gr
eat nation. Through his and his descendants’ eyes, we watch one small community’s impact on the great events, which swirl about them and bring conflicts they must face in their struggles to create homes and families.
Absorbing, touching and full of adventure, The Deserter is Book One of the Alford Saga, a series chronicling two hundred years of Canadian history as seen through the eyes of one settler’s family.
THE SURVIVOR
Thomas Manning, branded a deserter from the British Navy, is forced to change his name to James Alford to avoid the death penalty.
Determined to forge a new life on the Gaspé Peninsula, he struggles to survive the harsh landscape and win the hand of Catherine Garrett. After working in harsh sub-zero woods, he saves the life of an orphan working in a sawmill, and so gains crucial lumber to build a homestead out of intractable wilderness. But first he must battle murderous brigands to rescue a starving bull calf he hopes will be the first of the oxen he so desperately needs to clear his land. Finally, heroically surviving Canada’s worst-ever famine, he faces down implacable bureaucracies to keep the farm he has been fighting to bring under cultivation.
A captivating and fast-paced adventure, The Survivor is Book Two of the Alford Saga, a series chronicling two hundred years of Canadian history as seen through the eyes of one settler’s family.
THE PIONEER
The riveting Alford Saga continues with James Alford, the Deserter, battling old age and ferocious winters, but even more crippling, the departure of his son and only heir, Young Jim, who sets out on snowshoes for Montreal, seven hundred miles away.
Arriving at last in Montreal, Jim is driven by starvation into a back-breaking job constructing the Victoria Bridge. Jim finds lodgings with an Irish widow in Griffintown, and falls in love. After being deceived in this romance, he rejects the bitter realities of urban life and returns to the Old Homestead and its community of pioneers. His ageing father recruits him to rally recalcitrant neighbours to found a school for their children and a church for their worship in Shigawake.
Enthralling and adventurous, The Pioneer is Book Three in the Alford Saga, a series chronicling two hundred years of Canadian history as seen through the eyes of one settler’s family.
THE PILGRIM
In 1896, young rector Jack Alford is sent to the implacable, granite shores of Labrador on the vast St. Lawrence River. Hazards imperil his life as he travels this harsh 450-mile coastline by boat and dogsled to visit his far-flung parishioners. Jack also manages to rescue a cook from the crew of a schooner to keep him company on his travels.
In this fourth book of The Alford Saga, his zeal for the welfare of Labrador’s hardy parishioners diverts Jack from romance. Through summer storms that menace his tiny mission boat and fierce blizzards that almost annihilate his dog team, Jack brings succour to stranded families, care and leadership to villages perched on the windy granite and, finally, inspired teachings in hill-top churches that stand as beacons of hope among the seal-fishers and rugged pioneers of Labrador.
THE CHAPLAIN
The Prime Minister gives permission for John Alford, The Pilgrim, to board a tramp steamer crammed with a thousand young enlistees bound for adventure in the Boer War. They steam across a stormy Atlantic into a year of dusty, disease-ridden battles in South Africa — the first engagement by Canadian Forces on foreign soil. He and his courageous comrades endure freezing night-long marches and thirst-ridden days as they mount dangerous attacks on Boer commandos under a blazing sun, turning the tide of war in the great battle of Paardeberg Drift. He falls in love, but as Chaplain, he must first comfort the dying, tend wounded friends, and with his troops assault the impregnable Thaba ‘Nchu, the Black Mountain.
This enthralling tale of bravery and self-sacrifice is the fifth book in the Alford saga and is the first romantic adventure novel set in the Boer War for over a hundred years.
Copyright © 2014 by Paul Almond
Published in Canada by Red Deer Press, 195 Allstate Parkway, Markham, Ontario L3R 4T8
Published in the United States by Red Deer Press, 311 Washington Street, Brighton, Massachusetts 02135
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews and articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Red Deer Press, 195 Allstate Parkway, Markham, Ontario L3R 4T8.
www.reddeerpress.com
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Red Deer Press acknowledges with thanks the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council for their support of our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Almond, Paul 1931-
The Gunner / Paul Almond
eISBN 978-1-55244-333-0, print 978-0-88995-512-7
Publisher Cataloging-in-Publication Data (U.S.)
Data available on file
Design by Daniel Choi
Cover image courtesy of: Clive Prothero-Brooks, The RCA Museum CFB Shilo
