rthstewart | Chapter 5, Apostolic Way, Change of Heart, Part 1

Chapter 5, Change of Heart, Part 1 is finally posted. A huge thanks to

snacky who helped with some invaluable editorial advice.

And so we return to the non-linear point of view of Asim bin Kalil and being moving away from the visions of The Dawn Treader to other things. Some of this is a bit repetitive (but a lot less so than it was, thanks Snacky).

Also, we meet here and then in much greater detail in the next chapter, Col. Tom Clark, his son, Jack, and their housekeeper, Ruby. It bears noting that there is an important commander in the Operation Torch planning, Major General Mark Clarke -- he has no relation to Tom.

A few notes.
The details of the Torch planning were from here, and some other places. The information about Bletchley Park operations comes from this book, which was on my shelf until I managed to leave it on an airplane.

The "Maudlin and Monstrous Pile" that housed the codebreakers, the Bletchley Park mansion, is described in hilarious architectural detail here.

Asim mentions the Long Range Desert Group and I just adore this picture of them, courtesy of the New Zealand government

As for the history of military chocolate in the US, I refer you to the Hershey website

Yum yum

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I loved this! It was perfect for a cold, snowy morning.

Thanks for writing!

Thank you! Stay warm!

Squeee!!! This is wonderful. I promise you a more coherent review later, once I've had a re-read (the first reading was gobbled down like that Hershey chocolate), but this is just so enjoyable.

Nom Nom Nom to the Hershey chocolate. We are enjoying hot chocolate right now -- not something you all are doing much of this time of year. I hope it has stopped raining!

There were so many quotes I wanted to highlight and perhaps comment on, I took most of them here instead of to ff.net.

"Another sharp realization hit him with the force of a bullet to the chest. Edmund's telegram wrote of seeing Casp in N."

Finally someone connects the two! Perhaps Asim would be the one most likely to do so. It will be interesting to see whether there are more consequenses to this connection.

"She handled camels, horses, elephants, canoes, sailboats, and bicycles very well, but internal combustion engines were known to spontaneously ignite in proximity to Mary."

Oh, Mary ... she's better with low technology, apparently ...

"Mary was still looking for something like the proverbial hound to the scent that she was certain was in a plaster block in the ballroom. Or,"

... or ... or ... or ... or ... oh my! And she's not likely to give up before she finds it either, is she?

"Asim had learned that when Richard had persistently pursued Polly, it was Digory who had helped her stay firm and avoid a marriage that was surely ill-advised."

Richard and Polly? Well, perhaps it wouldn't have been a good idea ...

"[...] odd to think that Tom's ancestors would have been fleeing the ancestors of the men he was ordered to negotiate with. He understood the sentiments of his forbears very well at the moment."

Poor Tom - dumped in a strange country, where words don't mean what he's used to them meaning, and where ancient is really ancient and unrecognizable, and where everyone else knows a code that he doesn't know yet ... Good thing he's got those interesting young people as friends for himself and for his son, then!

""I thought that seemed strange for an English boy, but Edmund said it was a school project. He's been raiding my library; in fact, he's got my copy of Crime and Punishment, and I need to get it back before they are off to school!"
"When I saw him, he was also reading Sun Tzu's Art of War and trying to master the German language in thirty days," al-Masri said dryly."

There's Ed for you :-)

I love this chapter - and love the introduction of Tom!
I squeeed when I saw him living close to the Scrubbs - and then even knowing the Pevensies!!!

And I like that you build the politics involved on real events. I guess one could have written one's own AU WW2, but it's interesting to know that most of these things really happened (albeit with a different timing).

Thanks so much! This one was a battle, as so many of them often are. The Polly and Richard romance is shown and discussed here, http://rthstewart.livejournal.com/20681.html, and I've got a whole head canon associated with it

And Mary's not likely to give up before she finds it either, is she?
Nope. This goes back to her Eureka moment at the end of Part 1. She's looking for something, triggered by looking at the Flaming Cliffs book and she's going to find it.

We met Tom Clark briefly at the beginning of Chapter 1 -- the American in intelligence and now we find out why he is there, and more is made clear in the next chapter. It was so fun to be able to write that sort of American middle aged Yankee male lawyer point of view. It's the closest I've ever come to anything even approximating my own world and so it's easy to get into his head. I have lots and lots of Toms and Jacks in my world. Thanks again, so much!

As much as I love this story and these characters--and Asim is awesome!awesome!awesome in this most recent chapter--it is increasingly the background research that truly amazes me about your writing. I'm learning all sorts of interesting new things in the most enjoyable way by following along in your research. Those D Rations crack me up.

Thank you! The Wiki entry on the Ration D bars makes them sound horrible, whereas of course Hershey is very interested in making them sound great. I actually couldn't find anything about how much of the production was devoted to the Ration D and how much to regular chocolate. I'm assuming that those chocolate bars the American GIs were giving out to girls along with stockings and babies was not the ration bar but the real thing. The packs I saw at the WW2 Museum in New Orleans were real Hershey bars (I THINK). Thanks so much!

Wonderful, I read it yesterday and it made my day, you'll get a proper review as soon as I'm finished with this @*%$& flu....

Doerthe

Feel better!

Oh! So I forgot a comment in my review on ff.n--the idea of Richard's broken truck axles strewn across the countryside. Delightful image, that. Between him breaking axles and Mary igniting internal combustion engines, it's a miracle they can manage on anything more advanced than horse and buggy!

The original Richard scene was longer and with Asim, out of sequence and Mary was there, and well, about half of it ended up being cut. The scene, shorter though it is, is still redundant and doesn't really add a lot except as bridge to get from Asim and the War to Edmund. But, that line about the broken truck axels is one I've wanted to use for two years and it never fit before. Terrible of me, but sometimes, I'll construct scenes or characters just to accommodate lines I want to use. That's how I ended up with Evil Banker Morgan.

And you give us such delightful scenes and characters that way.

Scenes even as bridges are great.

Chapter 5, Apostolic Way, Change of Heart, Part 1

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