Pageturners: MI7 Assassin - Sean Stone's war stories
As a soldier, Sean Stone knows the truth about war. But, like most British authors, then and now, he wants to be published and so he censors his own work.
Welcome to Pageturners, a book I’m writing in which I share what I’ve learnt – and am still learning – about comic writing, film writing, novel writing and how new writers can sell their stories.
For the next six weeks or so I’ll be sharing with you the back story of MI7 Assassin, revealing the experiences that compelled the protagonist to become an assassin, including his meeting with real historical figures, many of whom feature prominently in the novel.
And I welcome your feedback or questions, so do leave a comment below!
Missed the Pageturners intro? Read it here.
Sean Stone. The MI7 Assassin.
He didn’t believe in pacifism or any other ism
He just wanted the war to stop.
He just wanted the voices in his head to stop.
But the dirty secret of war is that the dead stay with you.
Last week I told you about Sean’s fallen comrades and how they continue to haunt his thoughts and dreams because of his betrayal of their experiences on the battlefield in his war stories.
Sean has written censored and ‘heart-warming’ versions of his wartime experiences in three books. These will be occasionally referred to. Here are two examples and the censorship and the pressures that leads ultimately to him becoming the MI7 Assassin.
MILK FLOAT STORY
This is the full story before Sean has censored it so it is accepted by the publisher.
During the Retreat from Mons, the penalty for British soldiers breaking into houses in search of plunder was death. Despite this, Sergeant Dawes is helping himself to valuables from a deserted house ‘before the Hun takes it.’ But the house is not empty: a French girl Monique, is there looking after her bed-ridden grandmother. She fights Dawes off and he turns viciously on her.
Sean arrives and intervenes. He knocks Dawes down with the butt of his rifle. Sean tells Monique she must get away before the Germans arrive. She explains it’s not possible: she has no horse to pull their cart.
Sean finds a stray cavalry horse that must have thrown its owner. Monique protests: ‘But it’s a British war horse.’ Sean laughs in response. ‘Not really. Two weeks ago I saw it pulling a milk float in Peckham. It couldn’t take the bombardment, see? They always deliver first thing in the morning when it’s nice and quiet.’
Sean helps Monique put her grandmother on the cart. She gets Sean’s details and promises to write. As Dawes recovers consciousness, Sean gives her instructions for the horse, ‘If he won’t move, just call out ‘Milk-o’.’ Monique: ‘Milk-o…?’ The horse obediently canters off.
Sean is left to face a menacing Sergeant Dawes. Sean puts down his rifle, and squares up to Dawes, ready to fight him. Dawes says that while he only stole private property, Sean stole army property and that’s a lot worse. Sean thinks he’s done for. But Dawes respects a man who stands up to him. ‘I could have used you in my mob.’
‘But I can’t have anyone challenging my authority. I still got to stripe you, lad.’
He slashes Sean’s cheek with his razor.
In Sean’s book, he claims the scar is caused by a piece of shrapnel.
Only the cute story about the milk float horse is related in his book The Young Contemptibles. Sean removed his confrontation with Dawes because he knew that would be unacceptable to his publisher.
The Germans raped, pillaged and murdered in Belgium. But the British, we are constantly told, never or rarely behaved in this way either in the Great War conflict or in any other war right through to the present day.
The reality was very different and is well-documented but never mentioned, not least because mainstream publishers will never print it. Soldiers the world over behave the same under similar circumstances. But back then and today we are conditioned to truly believe in British (and American) exceptionalism.
But, only a few years earlier, in the Boer War, a British investigative journalist William Stead wrote a pamphlet entitled Methods of Barbarism which revealed that British troops were raping, looting and destroying property.
Yet today, MP Rees-Mogg claims that the British put the Boer civilians, women and children, in concentration camps, where many died, but it was for their safety and protection. The fact that Rees-Mogg should still defend atrocities committed over a century and a quarter ago shows the importance of propaganda.
As a soldier, Sean Stone knows the truth about war. But, like most British authors, then and now, he wants to be published and so he censors his own work, before his publisher does or before it is censored under the Official Secrets Act. Even Siegfried Sassoon’s anti-war poems were censored by his nervous publisher.
Stone’s position is then made worse by working for MI7, the Ministry of Propaganda.
The glamour of working with famous writers soon wears off and he realizes he is writing lies. The only other author in MI7 to feel the same way as Stone was A.A. Milne.
Hence the huge pressure Sean Stone’s dead comrades put him under to make things right.
CONCERT STORY
Mysterious objects are catapulted from the British trenches to the German trenches close-by. Other objects are thrown back. Sean thinks one is an unexploded bomb. But it turns out Sergeant Dawes has been doing deals with the Germans opposite.Dawes whispers to Sean to give him to give him a hand with shifting ‘the merchandise’ because they’re going out of the line tomorrow, ‘Careful. They’re cigars.’ He tells Sean it was a good deal: British bully beef for cigars.
‘He’s a good bloke is Heinrich. Got to know him when we arranged the Morning Hate together.’ Sean looks surprised and Dawes explains, ‘This war is all about business, son. It’s about wedge.’
Out of the line, the authorities have arranged a show for the troops. Some British officers present enjoy cigars and congratulate Dawes on supplying them. Others enjoy ‘this unusual black bread. It’s rather like Westphalian bread.’ ‘And the biscuits and ham. Makes a nice change from bully beef.’
The concert itself is awful and Sean comments to Mick, ‘They say the War Office is subsidising the concert to make us glad to go back to the Front.’
The female compere from the Voluntary Aid Detachment, a ‘jolly hockey stick’ type, sings ‘Your King and Country needs you’
Oh, we don't want to lose you but we think you ought to go.
For your King and your country both need you so;
We shall want you and miss you
But with all our might and main
We shall cheer you, thank you, bless you
When you come home again.
The compere VAD urges all “you gallant boys” to join in.
Sean, Mick, Sergeant Dawes and the others lustily respond, but with a negative version:
For we don’t want your loving
And we think you’re awfully slow
To see that we don’t want you
So, please, won’t you go.
We don’t like your sing-songs
And we loathe your refrain
So don’t you dare to sing it
Near us again
Compere VAD: Well, really!
Sean has organised an improvised orchestra to accompany him on piano: the drum is an empty packing case and the drum stick an entrenching tool with a piece of sacking tied round the end; empty biscuit tins as side-drums, tin-whistles, squeakers and combs and paper came in handy as well.
Compere VAD: What will you play?
Sean: Temptation Rag.
Looking disapproving, she announces this to ribald comments from the audience. As cool as ever, Sean plays the rag with his band “jamming” along with him.
But the compere complains to an officer.
Compere VAD: I believe this is known as black man’s music. There is really no need to encourage such a coarse sound. The soldiers want pretty music, sentimental ballads, to make them think of home.
Sergeant Dawes overhears her and says he knows just the song to make the lads think of home and begins (with Sean accompanying on piano):
I will have a night tonight
The missus is out of sight
The woman who lives next door to me
Her old man has gone to sea
I will have a night tonight
Compere VAD: So vulgar.
In Sean’s book version of this event, Sergeant Dawes and his men attack the Germans and take their food and cigars. There is no fraternisation. The bawdy concert that follows, though, is described in Sean’s book and was accepted by his publisher. Vulgarity is fine, but not trading with the enemy.