rthstewart | Rat and Sword Go To War

Entry tags:

Rat and Sword Go To War

Happy Easter! Or, Happy Cat Sacrifice Day! (based upon a badly translated t-shirt

econopodder spotted abroad a few years ago).

Should you be so inclined the story is up, Rat and Sword Go To War. Once all the Big Bang stories are up, I'll post it on FF and AO3. Also, I'm very close to posting a companion chapter to AW. Look for that in a few days.

heverus did the art, here and it is amazing. It has the map of the area in question of the story in the background and two very important items in the story, the Horsa glider and the Little Joe crossbow. It is wonderful and I'm so grateful that she picked up and worked in these two elements of the story.

A huge thanks to

autumnia for a brutal round and round and round on the beta.

amine_eyes, Clio and

snacky have all been so helpful and a huge thanks to the NBB mods. Thank you to Clio and

lotl101 for the assistance with WC Tebbitt’s poetry.

A few additional research notes are below, and spoiler heavy.

Tebbit’s poetry in Chapter 3, include the following:
• The Power of the Dog, Rudyard Kipling
• The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning
• A Wounded Deer -- leaps highest by Emily Dickinson
• To Sir Henry Wotton, by John Donne
• Elegy XX, To His Mistress Going To Bed, by John Donne

As I warned at the beginning, this is historical fiction. Yet, so much of it is true, incredibly so. There are many pictures on the web of the individuals and places depicted here.
The Pegasus Archive is an excellent source. Wonderful photos can be found here,

The Imperial War Museum has many photos, including three of my favorites:
A baptism at the Bénouville Maternity Hospital
A few members of D Company (including Captain Priday and Pte. Gardner) after D-Day with a French girl and a stolen motorbike
Captain Priday, Pte. Gardner and LCp Lambley

I have found very, very little about Madame Léa (also spelled Leah) Vion. You can see a picture of this indomitable woman here,

I think that there is probably a lot of source material, in French, about her, her accountant, Monsieur Claudius Desvignes, and her ambulance driver, Albert Lebourgeois, but I was unable to find much of anything at all.

As mentioned previously, primary source material includes: Stephen Ambrose’s Pegasus Bridge: June 6, 1944 and Will Fowler’s Pegasus Bridge. Susan’s story comes from several sources documenting the exploits of the women the SOE inserted into occupied countries. Sources include Rita Kramer’s Flames in the Field and Marcus Binney’s The Women Who Lived For Danger.

While there is some dispute, it is pretty well recognized that D Company engaged the first enemy on D-Day and also that Lt. Den Brotheridge was the first casualty. What happens to D Company after June 6 is more about the hedgerow by hedgerow fighting that characterized the fighting in France and it makes sense to stop the story here. I would not call it a happy or triumphant ending, but the long, slow slog of war and sitting as I do with the benefit of hindsight and stupendous ignorance, it smacks a bit of missed opportunity to me.

On D-Day in Caen some 40 members of the Centurie network were shot at a local prison. A long siege of Caen followed that destroyed nearly all of the city.

The Caen Canal Bridge was renamed Pegasus Bridge and the River Orne Bridge renamed as Horsa Bridge. The whole area is now given over to a museum and if you look at the google maps entry for Gondrée Café, you will see that it is along Major John Howard Avenue. Another street in the area bears Lea Vion’s name. Den Brotheridge is buried there and google will take you to his gravesite. Here is the map of the area.

Peter’s adventures are taken completely from my source material and many of the quotes and dialogue come from those accounts. It is because the source material is so clear on who did what that I did not feel I could eliminate any of the men of Parr’s brotherhood, which I expanded to include Peter. In several instances, the source material said that Parr and [Bailey, Gray, or Gardner] did a thing with some other unnamed soldier. Peter became the third, unnamed soldier. Wally Parr and Jack Bailey did crawl on their knees to Major Mad Bastard Howard during the 130 mile march from the Devon cliffs. Wally Parr and Billy Gray and an unnamed third person did steal soap from the NAAFI. Fox and Smith really did sneak into town for dinner with their girls and didn’t remember how they’d gotten off base. Parr, Charlie Gardner and an unnamed solider cleaned out the bunkers on the west side of the bridge. Major Howard really did get sick all the time on glider flights. Charlie Gardner really did push the button on the Number One Gun. Wally Parr really did watch Stormy Weather.

Unlike, for instance, the film, The Longest Day which eliminated these many men and actually moves the story to only one bridge, over the River Orne, I sacrificed narrative and storytelling coherence for adherence to the historical record. In the film, Richard Todd plays John Howard. Todd was himself in the 6th Airborne and took part in the subsequent battles in the areas around the Caen Canal and River Orne bridges.

The Exeter exercise over the Countess Weir bridges is also true. Howard sent Brotheridge to be a good influence and the Lieutenant got too drunk. Brotheridge was fond of quoting from Three Men And A Boat though at this juncture, the stories indicate he was apparently more prone to quoting poetry about death. In Exeter, D Company broke windows, started fights, and many of them should have been jailed for their behavior. Incarceration, however, would have jeopardized the entire D-Day operation. Howard convinced the local constable, a World War 1 veteran himself, that these were the high, tense spirits of fighting men before the big battle to come. Rather than throwing D Company in jail, the Exeter police force calmly rounded up the drunken D Company and returned them to base.

On Susan’s side the work has been more challenging. The SOE source material was invaluable. Many of the instructors’ notes of the women students survived and I have copied the style of speaking, including the frequent asides by the instructors that they are always surprised by what a woman can do. I do not, however, know if there was ever a deer kill in the curriculum.

There are wonderful stories about the reunions at the Gondree Café and that no member of the 6th Airbourne ever paid for a drink. Major Howard and Hans von Luck of the 21st Panzer became very good friends. The Gondrées didn’t like Germans and so when von Luck came to the Café with his friend, Howard would tell the Gondrées that Von Luck was really Swiss. This is one of my favorites, with Lt. David Wood, Major Howard, and Georges Gondree:

In some places, the record is unclear and contradictory. The sequence of events is uncertain. There is doubt as to what sort of tank followed Lord Lovat’s commandos (Churchill or Sherman?) and what tank Sergeant Thornton took out with the Piat (full tread, half tread?), and what happened to the Gammon bombs. Lord Lovat was more than 1 minute late, as is often reported. They never did find out where the snipers were and in false bravado, Lord Lovat marched his men across the bridge and 6 of them were shot through their berets.

Piper Billy Millin really did storm Sword Beach in a kilt, with bagpipes. To borrow from the wiki entry (and this is all captured in pictures, films, and photographs, including The Longest Day,) pipers had traditionally been used in battle by Scottish and Irish regiments though by WW2, the British Army had relegated them to the back. Lord Lovat ignored the orders and ordered Millin to play when they stormed the beachhead. When Private Millin declined, citing British Army regulation, Lord Lovat replied: “Ah, but that’s the English War Office. You and I are both Scottish, and that doesn’t apply.” Millin states that he later talked to captured German snipers who claimed they did not shoot him because they thought he was crazy.
From the wiki page of Billy Millin and link to the film, The Longest Day,

I tell nothing of the events around the taking of the River Orne Bridge and the pitched fighting that occurred in Le Port, Ranville, and Benouville, limited as I am by Peter’s perspective.

The flying of Sergeant Wallwork to bring Number #1 glider nearly into the Caen Canal Bridge is described as one of the greatest flying efforts of World War 2. Sergeant Thornton’s firing upon the tank (full tread or half tread) is considered one of the most decisive moments in all of the D-Day operations for from that single act, many things flowed. The fireworks were so great, the Germans assumed D Company had anti-tank weapons (they did not) and that their numbers were far greater than they were (the 6th Airborne was landing all over the place and the reinforcements were small and spotty). The location of the tank was important as well, for it sat at a critical T-junction, an intersection. Stuck there, it prevented the Germans, for a time, from moving their armor between Le Port and Benouville and from Caen to the beaches. Fowler speculates that but for that ruined hulk of a tank, Von Luck could have moved some of his armor sooner and possibly seriously imperiled the Sword Beach landings.

As I warned at the beginning, the language is salty. It is also period, as you can find out if you read General Patton’s D-Day remarks. The books mention constantly how the men were always cursing and swearing, but they don’t actually repeat what they said.

So, that’s it. I have sorely missed the back and forth with regular readers as I slogged through this.

autumnia has been an enormous help and fabulous beta. My thanks and I hope you enjoy

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Happy Easter to you too! - and AHHH, "Rat and Sword Go to War" is up! I'm so excited! I'v been swamped, so it may take me a bit to get to it. I had an interview this week followed by a request for a campus visit, we've had guests, I've been trying to work on my book, and just, urgh. I haven't been reading much fic, and it's piled up alarmingly. I need to finish AW, I think, before RASGTW happens. But I'm SO happy it's up, I'm just thrilled, and I will get to it soon. I hope you are having a wonderful holiday weekend!

A funny note - my father asked me about pagan Easter this morning, and I laughed. Beltane doesn't happen for a few weeks, but we'll have some kind of celebration, of that you may be sure. :)

My spousal unit commented this evening that I had bonded very readily with our tour guide in ancient Ostia over the sacred and the pagan. At the Easter vigil Mass last night as they were dipping the candle into the baptismal font, I had to work to keep from laughing aloud. Yeah, it's up and I've got SERIOUS angst about it. But it's done. I really floundered with it. Thanks again!

You will forgive me for not reading this story in its entirety now that it's finally posted for public consumption? :-)

That said, I will admit to reading it from Google just a few days before. Anyway, I love the footnotes you've added here, especially about all the original source material that I hadn't discovered on my own mad Google searches! I especially love how Howard and von Luck became friends after the war -- really, that's the way of things, isn't it? That in the end, they are all just the same but serving on different sides and if you can get past the business of war, there's always a chance they could be friends.

Thank you again. Something that is missing in the story and there's no solution to it, is how constrained it is by point of view. The films and books are all presented from multiple povs and you can go beyond them completely. The picture of Howard, Wood, and Gondree is one of my favorites and I love how Howard and Van Luck become friends.

Starting to read it now! I had such a happy flail when I noticed it was posted that people started asking me if I'm alright! I'm so excited and you'll have a proper review soon!

I can't find the words to tell you how wonderful R&SGTW is. I love it so very much. I absolutely love the last scene, and I can't wait for an AW update. Danny's outcome made me cry, to be honest. Brilliant job!

I'm in the middle of Easter dinner and 2 glasses of wine, but thanks SO MUCH. THIS is the first FB I've had -- it's a great billowing echoing silence about the story, and I've had HUGE misgivings that I completely missed the mark and that it was terrible. I really have assumed it's rotten and have been so close to just ripping it down or out and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. I don't know what was wrong with it. So thanks so much for reading and commenting. I hugely appreciate it.

For my part, I think you've done everything right! There is nothing wrong with it! It may just be that people are doing Easter things, or else still reading. I loved it, and I'm sure so do many others!

Danny's outcome made me cry, to be honest.

Oh yes, I agree totally! I think I said that to

rthstewart when I first read of it, and even now I still get sad whenever I get to that part. What makes it worse is that it really did happen, too.

As for the lack of feedback, I agree with you that it's likely due to the Easter holiday. Plus, the story is very, very long so it may take a bit of time for people to get through it all. :-)

I keep thinking, "I didn't kill Danny. A soldier on the bridge killed Danny."

I'm skipping the spoilers so there's little to say, but thank you! I'll start reading it as soon as I can. It looks like fun :)

I hope you like it!

Happy Easter to you as well. I've just spent two hours ploughing through from end to end, and Oh my! I promise some more coherent comments once I've had a second (slower) read, but it's wonderful, both story and art. Congratulations

Thanks! I hope you had a good day!

Thank you! I've been feeling very down about it, so I'm so grateful that you read and liked it!!! And Hev did a wonderful job on the art.

It's good, really good. There's a lot that I like, but one point I particularly picked up on is that it's realistic - you haven't portrayed teens as coming and saving the day single-handedly, but they're playing a part (albeit a remarkable part) in a very much larger whole - I like that a lot.

Just dropping a quick note to say I am home from work now and am reading the story. As of chapter two, I am enjoying it very much! :-D

Thank you! I can't wait for yours!

Aah, no, after having read yours and

deathsblood's, I am going, "But I wrote a war story while basically doing everything I could to not write the actual fighting, that was such a fink-out," and also, "But it hardly even counts as Narnia fanfiction -- really I could change about ten names (people and places) and call it original fiction and nobody would notice," and also, oh my god, my art sucks in comparison to what's been posted so far. :-(

ETA: By which I mean the art I drew, not the art

i_autumnheart drew for me. *headdesk* Hers is awesome. Apparently I fail at clarity, too.

Edited 2012-04-10 04:18 (UTC)

And Liz, my friend, you are one of the few writers in this fandom who could populate a Narnia story entirely with OCs and readers, myself included, would follow it, because it is that good. I know that you haven't been reading the bigger TSG work that this is part of, so it was probably really heavy going in that regard. There aren't too many OCs but at this point, those who are following along don't need much explanation for how Susan and Peter go to this place, and who the characters are around them who help get them there. This is only standalone to a point and fits very much within the larger in a work.

And Deathblood's story was so creepy! YIKES. and I loved the art work that went with it.

I tore through the entirety of the story last night, but by the time I finished, it was 10:30 PM and I still had chores to do (because I was putting them off in favor of reading), so I figured I would wait until I was more awake and not neglecting reality to leave feedback.

The entire thing was wonderful. I loved the teacher notes on Susan and how there's that wry undertone to them. I love how Peter was frustrated with the training, but in the end he realized it had all been worth it. I loved how Susan cycled through her different personas, trying to figure out which one was the most applicable to each situation. I loved Susan storming in, soaking wet, pissed as hell at Parr (and I adored Parr to pieces, with his NUMBER ONE GUN).

Fantastic. Brilliant. Dare I even say it, but Magnificent ;-).

Wally Parr (my gawd, even the name) is one of these amazing, larger than life people that I was really terrified of even attempting to tackle. That whole NUMBER ONE GUN is described in the books and some of his lines are direct quotes. “Nobody told me it was going to be a quiet war.” I felt badly putting swear words in his mouth. There's this description about how it seemed all fighting stopped and there was this curious lull so that all you could hear throughout the bridges was Parr shouting NUMBER ONE GUN and of course there was only ONE gun and when he found he was shooting at the hospital he says later, blimey that's the first time I ever shout at pregnant ladies and babies. He's son has a website for him.

Susan's teacher notes were fashioned very much on the ones in the books, right down to those asides of "for a woman" and "almost as good as a man" sorts of things. I play a lot with Susan's multiple personas and those additions late in the story were a little over dramatic but at least in keeping with what I've been doing with her character.

Peter grows a lot in the story -- the first scene where he's marching the 130 miles is in the books and I wrote it first, and as the story developed, I went back and changed it so that he's more rebellious and regretful and later comes to really be part of the platoon and "one of the guys." His Most Royalness definitely becomes a man of the people.

Thank you again

It's such a backwards way for Peter to learn how to be a soldier--starting at the top and going back down to the bottom. I wish he had a chance to be King again and use what he learned as a private to become an Even Better Leader. He'd drive people mad when he sat down and started polishing his own boots!

Oh, I also loved Susan using Lambert's name, and how the reason she stops wanting to talk about Narnia is because it's getting so muddled up with the nasty bits of reality because it's such an effective cipher.

It's definitely not story fail. I haven't managed to pull myself back to reality to comment yet. I've been too busy trying to figure out where Peter and D Co are off too next.

Susan, also, deserves a nice long break somewhere with Tebbit.

And Edmund in Washington DC with the Col. It seems to me there must be a one-shot or two in there. What does Agnes think of him? Edmund in a US POW camp privately fuming over the injustice of the Afrika Korps having an easier time of it at Camp Clinton then the innocents in London?

I was trying to find a way to have Peter liberate Lowry in a POW camp, but it doesn't look like D Co got that assignment. Further, it doesn't look like very many people from D Co are around past the next assignment or two.

Anyway, I'll stop the rambling. And if it isn't obvious, yes, I liked it. And have read it twice. And may have to read it a third time tomorrow.

Doctor Dolly

Edmund in DC was a total surprise, which I wrestled with not doing. I'd never intended to write a war story and so I never had much in mind for Edmund and Lucy until after the war. Lucy's story is pretty clear now but I never had much for Edmund. I wrote the scene with Walker-Smythe and Asim late in the story (Susan's story originally began in Chapter 3 with her jog at Beaulieu) and as I was writing, I thought well, why not? It's why I asked earlier about what Morgan might be in the Tarot because of course he WILL meet Agnes and she WILL read the Tarot.

As for D Company in the future, yeah, it's not very pretty and really something of a waste, in my ignorant opinion. Most of them died and they ended up completely reorganizing and splitting it up. The most likely, actually, if I wanted to get Peter to liberating a POW camp (assuming Lowrey survives) is that he gets injured, is sent back to recover, then goes back into the war with another unit. That's what Thornton did and ending up dropping into Arnhem thereby being part of the two biggest bridge assaults of the war. There's the whole issue too of what happens to Susan after this. Yeah, there's a lot of what happens next but this is the high point and I wanted to end the story here.

And, I don't know anything about the Camp Clinton issues. I'll have to track that down. I'm not planning on doing a whole lot with Edmund in DC -- he's not there that long. But there is Venona...

Thank you so much. I've been very down about it and really appreciate you taking the time to read.

It also might be interesting to have Peter make his way over to T-Force. Going from the 2nd Ox and Bucks to 1st Ox and Bucks might make alot of sense.

Regardless of what you choose to do, I'll be delighted to read it :)

Doctor Dolly

Curse you! I WAS NOT GOING TO DO ANY MORE WITH THIS AND THEY YOU HAVE TO SEND ME GOOGLING ABOUT T-FORCE???? OMG. And according to wiki it was the brainchild, in part, of Ian Fleming, who has already made an oblique appearance. AHHHHH I need to step away from the research NOW.

Echoing previous comments, this is definitely not story fail. I did a small flail of excitement when I saw that this was posted and then got all sad because I knew I would have to wait a little while to read it. But I finished, and it's lovely. Your historical content is, as always, incredible, and I particularly liked how all of the instructors' notes on Susan were shocked at how good she was for a woman. She's very impressive in this story.

The story about D Company and the prank with the soap is just too hilarious. I loved it. Something I did notice though, was that our favorite Major had not yet met Lucy. I thought that this was a year or two ahead of AW, and I'm certain that you've mentioned the Major and Lucy meeting soon in AW's line. Not sure if I'm just confusing the timeline, or if this timeline is separate.

And Edmund with the headmaster! I think I died a little. "You don't have clearance." "And he does?" I was snickering rather obnoxiously and feel fortunate that no one was around to hear me.

I do agree that perspective does limit what can be told in the story, particularly a piece of history so well explored, but I think you do quite a good job considering the constraints. Perspective, however, is always the challenge with writing. I didn't feel like I was missing any key bits of information or anything similar, so I think you can count it a success. I'm going to have to reread this soon. I always blaze by things too quickly in the first go, it seems, and it will be enjoyable besides.

greaves

Thanks so much! On the issue of when Asim meets Lucy, he mentions not having met her at the very beginning of the story which is set sometime in early 1943 (I'm vague, but it's after Christmas right after where AW currently leaves off). By the time Susan is in training in Inverness-shire, which is at least 6 months later, she notes that Asim does know all of them. So yes, Lucy and Asim do meet and it's coming very soon in AW. The two stories and their timelines are consistent and in fact I begin the next chapter of AW with the scene with Asim and Colonel Walker-Smythe -- I repeat it.

The perspective was an issue, particularly during the events at the bridge after it had been taken until Lovat arrived. Also, frankly the accounts got very confusing -- which platoons were sent into La Port to help in the street fighting and when, the liberation of the Gondrees, the whole of the larger 6th Airborne operation, everything at the River Orne Bridge. It got bigger as well with the arrival of the paras. From the source material, most of the stories were from the perspectives of a couple of the surviving Lieutenants, Howard, Parr, and Thornton. So, I pared it back, though what I tell here is actually bigger (and more accurate) than the Longest Day. There were some other significant events -- a bomb fell on the bridge (it was a dud), there were some boat/frogmen attacks on the bridge, but even my research sources didn't talk much about the fighting in the area around the bridges.

Anyway, t hank you so much for reading. (And I cannot WAIT for an update to The Golden Age).

Thank you for all this - I've been looking forward to it, and it was well worth the wait. Loved the way Peter & Susan both realise how much, despite their head starts, they still have to learn.

Thank you. About a zillion times, I thought of begging your and wellinghall's help as I muddled through the class, language, and Brit pick issues. Your offhand comments have been incredibly instructive, even if I never explained how or why. The first scene I wrote was Peter marching from the Devon cliffs and as I began to refine his character journey, I began to understand the significance of going or not going to OCTU, of drinking coffee versus tea, of playing football versus rugger, and of just how much Peter did not fit in that environment. It was completely by accident and my source material doesn't go into this in any but the most cursory way. For the Americans, we don't really get it, and for the British authors, they don't need to explain it. Yet, this was exactly where I wanted Peter, for reasons having to do with the bigger story arc.

As an example, I learned in the books that Lt. David Wood joined D Company fresh from OCTU at age 19. Later when those poor Italian slave laborers from the Todt are running around the Caen Canal Bridge, it's Wood who is able to communicate with them because he knows a bit of Latin. And of course he does, because he was probably a product of the same sort of environment Peter was -- as compared to the ROs in the unit, Brotheridge, and Howard. I thought about playing with Peter joining Wood but couldn't make it fit and besides, it's very clear that it's David Wood who speaks to them, not Peter Pevensie, and it's enough to think of the image of these two guys running around trying to install Rommelspargel on the morning of D Day after the gliders had crashed.

That scene marching from the cliffs and Peter's deep regret and then his subsequent talk with Den Brotheridge changed a lot as I understood better what I had blundered into all by accident. I didn't even realize I could use this story as a vehicle for the high and lofty slumming with the common man so to speak until I began thinking about it, and the occasional comment you offered. Humbly, I'll never be able to get that quite right but thank you for your assistance with it.

You're always welcome to ask! I thought you'd handled the class issues extremely sensitively. One or two of the swear words sounded to my ears more American than British, but no doubt that's the result of all the, ahem, "friendly fraternization" with the Yanks - bound to pick up a bit of each other's vocab.

My (American) paternal grandmother once told me that she found it far easier to get hold of coffee supplies during the war than tea. She said it was because everyone else was after the tea - which rather begged the question of why they were importing coffee in disproportionate amounts. She worked at the US Embassy, though, so she might well have had access to priviliged supplies.

Omg it is finally here. And I have been reading while walking into walls because better the bruises than the suspense! We all want the action so badly, it heightens alpreciation of the story and Peter and Susan's anticipation, oh and Crow!! Too much too type oh a phone late at night, but the breadth and scope astound. And execution - masterful as ever. I adore all the gentle touches, like the dogs following Susan everywhere (I always remember your line from another story about arrows flying all over the place, and now this one as well)... And the speculations of Tebbit and Asim and the Colonel... Love love love!!
Would post this with the story itself but it does not allow anon. And apparently I lose parts of speech typing on a phone. C'est la vie moderne!
More, hopefully, later. Bravo to a story well and respectfully told!
~Syrena

Thanks so much. I think you can post anon over on the live journal site, but it seems you are attempting to do this late at night, on a phone and are walking into walls. So, set it all down, give yourself some time and then I'd love to hear more if you are so inclined. Thank you very much, Syrena for weighing in at all given the technological limitations! I also be posting it to ff.net another week or so once all the stories are up!

I found the post at 9:00 p.m. and stayed up way too late to read it right through. As the others have said, thank you so much for it. I am awed by your painstaking research and fascinated that Peter can be inserted into real history like that. It just goes to show that fact is as strange as fiction!

The parallel stories of Susan and Peter at their training are great. Poor Peter--a year of slogging through mud without any idea what the final orders will be. So difficult for him after being commander in chief!

And I'm really looking forward to seeing the Colonel's perception of Edmund when the two spymasters meet!

I think the bits I like the best are the details: Susan slogging through muddy tracks on a rickety old bicycle--oh and using the crossbow. Then the moments when Peter draws Aslan on the glider and sees the tiny drawing of the rat on the plans and wonders if it is Susan. And you really do justice to Parr and the others and Lt. Brotherbridge.

Thanks again--it was well worth the wait.

ClaireI

Thanks so much! I had another very nice reader point out that for all my complaints about no visuals, I will include small pieces -- the hand braced on the strut, the wheel in the mud, the rain running down the neck. It's just that I really provide no physical description unless I absolutely have to do so, I guess. I tend to write dialogue first and then have to go back and fill it is so that it doesn't read like a play.

I had really not wanted to write a war story and did not want to put Peter into anything so exalted. Weather, taking care of the dogs, mechanic.... I'd thought about a lot of those. But then I read about Pegasus Bridge and I just had to do it. The fit was just too uncanny. That happens a lot in the story.

Thank you so much for reading and sharing your thoughts.

OMG OMG OMG It's up! And I haven't checked lately! *squeee*

The reason that I haven't been checking frequently is that I am actually living in Berlin right now. The move occurred over the last two weeks (endless paperwork to do this, and it's almost over). It's a bit of a shocker, being a good member of the Commonwealth and living here: a big part of my symbol of Berlin has that horrible man with the funny little mustache in it, and yet - they have moved on. My flat is two blocks from where the Wall used to be. They have soooo moved on.

Anyway, off to read, tra la tra la :)

This will be a shorter comment than the story deserves, but I should really be going to bed. Yet with chapter 15 of AW posted I want to comment on both now.

I think what I love most about RaSGtW, particularly as distinct from AW#15 is that it shows Peter and Susan coming to terms with their limitations Here. That for all the skills and knowledge they gained There (and it does put the very far ahead indeed), there is still more to learn in this world.

Susan continues along her path fairly directly (her evaluations were priceless), but for Peter, his challenge is to learn to follow as well as lead. I wonder if he sees it as a gift, not having to shoulder the level of responsibility he had for so long? Or even the burden of scholarship that never fit as anything but an obligation? I do love all of the amazing coincidences in the landing zones, etc. And of course he did manage to end up where one private could have a bigger impact on the war than any lower-ranking officer elsewhere!

Great work showing all the challenges in appearing to be a native of a foreign country, too- the cheese scene really nailed it. It didn't matter how well Susan could describe the cheese, or compare it to any other, without the cultural context for her expected reaction.

And finally, Edmund steals the show in his scene with the crack about the headmaster. But it's a great scene as well for showing us Tebbit's views of the Pevensies- less inclined to puzzle it all out but fully aware of it all the same. And at least a touch aware of Edmund's opinion of him!

Thanks so much. I deeply missed the comments of readers chapter by chapter as they always enrich the story and improve later chapters, so this aspect of the Big Bang has been very hard. Yes, I know, lots of people will only read finished work and only want to interact with a work in a complete state but I know what I do is much, much better for the interaction here for which I am hugely grateful. Even more is that it provides an reason to talk with people -- a platform for the exchange that goes beyond the four corners of the story.
The good news is that there are two things I did apparently get right in the story -- that Susan and Peter are very good but not perfect and still have things to learn (who knew? I'd sort of assumed that people prefer their Pevensie canon characters without obvious flaws and as nothing less than totally awesome). Second -- and this was important to me -- was that I manage to put them into the story to accomplish things without them over-shadowing the real people -- a very trick task in fan written historical fiction.

In any event, thanks. A reader just commented that she didn't necessarily agree with me that Peter's growth was more significant than Susan's. With Peter, though is that there is a stripping away of his sense of privilege -- he is a humble person, but by later in his reign, I think he's a very impressive, confident person and leader. He's accustomed to leadership and deference, he's the CEO, President, and Commander in Chief, and he's very good at those things. He comes very much from a position of privilege, reinforced in the environment he's grown up in, eldest son, favored child, off to do Big Things at University. This life of the common infantry man, with these rough and lower class men isn't even something he saw in the Narnian Army. It's a BIG change and he comes away from the experience I think far more cognizant of the "other half," or the other 99% as the case may be.

Still, Susan does grow too. The cheese thing is one of those things that very much comes from Maenad of 2 years ago. The Milice also were very astute in finding the imposters. I was in fact a little uncomfortable in settling Susan in France because she definitely is outside the normal profile (I know, I know, fan fic, but still). The other women who went had in country experience whereas Susan does not. It was why I was relieved to put her in the place I did -- where she was shielded and performing a very, very specific supportive role.

Anyway, thanks so much.

"I manage to put them into the story to accomplish things without them over-shadowing the real people -- a very trick task in fan written historical fiction."

It's wonderful to see them find a place in their own, non-Narnian, society, and be all the more useful citizens Here because of their experience from There. But still not be the overwhelming Heroes, but good, useful people.

This story had such long chapters, I had to find large holes in my schedule for reading them, and those holes turned out to be several weeks apart ...

I've reviewed on ff.net as I read each chapter, and I've now finally finished the last one. The review is over there, so here I'll just say, "Thank you for an amazing story!"

Thank you so much! the story really didn't do very well in the postings and I'm so grateful that you read and enjoyed it and reviewed it. At this point, it may be the last thing I finish, so I really appreciate you taking the time to R&R!!

the trickiest part was to try and keep it interesting and true to character while still not diminishing what the real people did. And a war story? I wrote a war story? What was I thinking?

Thank you again.

Edited 2012-06-30 16:36 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Rat and Sword Go To War

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Wonderful story

Re: Wonderful story

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject