Body #311

War, of course, is an ugly thing. Perhaps the ugliest part of war is the devastation wrought on civilians, lives taken, and cities ruined.

Even as a kid, once I started to read up on military history, I found World War I to be the stupidest of mankind’s wars. Like most wars, what instigated it is somewhat intricate to navigate, but mostly it boiled down to who had a treaty with whom, and if Nation A was attacked, then Nation B was obligated to come to their defense, etc. Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated and it just tumbled into an immensely dumb chain reaction. That is just the 30,000-foot level take, but from that lofty altitude things always come down to the personal stories amongst the ruins, the mosaic of the tragedy of war.

It was one such story that seized on my imagination, and my emotions.

Dead Wake is Erik Larson’s appropriately titled book about R.M.S. Lusitania and its very sudden and shocking sinking in May 1915. The war was relatively young at that point and would drag mindlessly on for another three years. The German empire had been utilizing its U-Boat fleet to attack British Navy vessels as well as passenger liners flying the Union Jack. This was partly because the British were blockading Germany to quite literally starve them out.

And it was working.

The Germans had taken to going after the liners because the British also used them to ship war materials along with civilians. This was arguably a questionable policy, but the doctrine of targeting ocean liners was, even then, highly controversial. It would be easy to simply write it off as “Such is war,” a take that one could just as blithely assign to any such strategy in wartime, such as the allied bombing campaign of the succeeding conflict (the horrific firebombing of Dresden comes specifically to mind). From there one could even make the case that the Germans kicked all of that off by bombing London during the Battle of Britain.

Near the end of Dead Wake, Mr. Larson details the aftermath of Lusitania’s sinking, and the recovery of the victims, which dragged on for months. He mentions, almost in a passing brief sentence or two, that the body of a woman washed onto the shore of Straw Island, off Galway, Ireland. The poor thing had been adrift for over a month.

That story just latched onto me and did not let go. Amongst all the individual stories of horror and sadness in such an awful event, what had happened to this woman stood out for me as especially poignant. I could not shake the image of this woman and what she must have gone through – physically, mentally and emotionally. She probably drifted for much of the time with land tantalizingly within sight, just knowing that she would be rescued.

Lusitania went down in a mere 18 minutes, unlike Titanic, which remained afloat for almost three hours. There was plenty of time with Titanic, just not enough lifeboats. It was the exact reverse with Lusitania; there were plenty of lifeboats but a drastic shortage of time.

When I was alerted that the publisher www.historythroughfiction.com was launching a short-story competition for an upcoming anthology, I already had my story. Or, at least, the kernel of one.

Many times, the best way to illustrate the often-calamitous human experience is through the more intimate personal stories. I believe that is why historical fiction speaks in such a resounding way to us. It brings history to life, even through tales of death.

So, the story of Maeve Druery – the main character of my tale as published in the anthology The Blood of Englishmen www.historythroughfiction.com/store/p/the-blood-of-englishmen-paperback , is as personal as I could get it. But not just her story; her father’s and the others who may or may not have survived that tragic day on the Celtic Sea.

The Blood of Englishmen - Virtual Launch Celebration and Reading https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exZr4rP8AiU&t=17s