Pageturners: MI7 Assassin - Sean's comrades
'You know what it’s really like and you lied. And you’re still lying now you’re working for MI7. So don’t bother sending any more pieces of silver to my widow. It’s dirty money and we don’t want it.'
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 revealed the inciting incident that sets Sean Stone on his path to ‘smite the wrongs’. This week I introduce his comrades.
Sean Stone’s comrades are in the tradition of Charley Bourne’s comrades in Charley’s War. Some of those I still remember with huge affection, and I know the readers do too. Soldiers like Smith 70 and Young Albert, Old Bill, and above all, Ginger. These new comrades were with Sean from 1914 and the commencement of hostilities, until the first day of the Battle of the Somme, when they were killed.
A fifth comrade had deserted earlier, some months before the battle. His dead mates haunt him in his thoughts and dreams, speaking to him from ‘the other side’, which they call ‘No Man’s Land’.
The dreams vary from their actual appearances to symbolic nightmares.
One such symbolic dream is being attacked by a venomous white snake owned by Miss Zlimani, the Snake Charmer from his music hall days. Sean holds the deadly creature by the throat as it spits out its venom at him, symbolising the venom of his dead comrades, outraged by his ‘betrayal’.
Another symbolic dream is where the giant gas bag on the roof of his car (the solution to the shortage of gasoline in WW1) had turned into a tick bloated with blood.
The huge engorged insect provided the ‘fuel’ for his car and the blood dribbling down the windscreen had woken him up, sweating. He got the message. Loud and clear.
Now his comrades are dead, they seem more alive than ever, with access to his innermost thoughts.
MICK HARRIS
Irish patriot. Known as ‘The Mickado’ because of his singing abilities. But ‘he’s not John McCormack’ and frequently sings off-key. So he is also known as ‘Pissy-Sing’ from the Mikado. He deserts after the Irish Easter Uprising 1916.
SERGEANT BRUCE DAWES
He was an Elephant Boy, one of the notorious Elephant and Castle gang.
He talks to Sean in his dreams:
‘Just cos your new mates in MI7 say they’re winning the war don’t make it true. How do you know they’re lying? Their lips are moving. I’m running out of patience with you, son. All that guff you wrote about us laughing when Fritz was giving us what for. You weren’t laughing when them Jack Johnsons and Moaning Minnies was exploding all around us. You was crapping yourself.
‘Now you know what you’ve gotta do, son. It’s an easy gaff for someone like you. Two floors up. Room 38, Ministry of Munitions. I’d do it meself if I was still alive. And you’ll discover who all the bleeding traitors are. Them who need sending to No Man’s Land. By the way, how do you like your new uniform? Is it blue or green tabs for military intelligence? You always were a bit bleeding green.’
Sean will argue with his internal voices. He reminds Dawes when he was alive, he was looting during the Retreat From Mons, ‘making wedge from the war, just like the toffs.’ The dead Dawes replies sullenly, ‘Yeah, well I know different now.’
RALPH PLANT
‘The gravedigger’. He lived in the gravedigger’s cottage in Brompton cemetery. Grave robbers were a common problem. They would steal jewels from dead bodies. Ralph had seen off robbers trying to break into mausoleums in the cemetery. The grateful and wealthy families the tombs belonged to bought him the cottage, so their loved ones could rest in peace. Ralph left the cottage to Sean in his will.
Ralph is a collector of American Popular Mechanics Magazine, featuring all the latest breakthroughs in science and fantastic ‘steam-punk’ inventions that could win the war. Ralph was raised in a brutal children’s home and could barely read and write, but he would still look with wonder and curiosity at the amazing illustrations in his magazines. In the trenches, Sean would read him chapters from Popular Mechanics Magazine. They would laugh together over the slogan: ‘written so you can understand it’.
Sean the writer and the semi-literate Ralph had formed a close bond.
He, too, talks to Sean in his dreams.
‘I want you to know how I feel, Sean. I may not be able to read and write proper, but I’m not stupid, despite what they said about me in the home. I know what you’re doing is wrong. Since you joined that MI7, you’ve done nothing but write lies and more lies. Deep down, you’re a good bloke, but it’s time you did the right thing.’
Sean argues with him that no one would publish the truth. ‘What can I do, mate?’
Ralph replies, ‘You know the answer, mate. It’s in Room 38.’
DUNCAN MOND
Sean’s most scathing critic. ‘About your latest book, I read it carefully and, frankly, I don’t think much of it. We all thought you’d tell the truth about the war, but instead you write just the same old Boys Own Paper tripe. We are so fed-up with this eyewash written to amuse the idiots back home. You know what it’s really like and you lied. And you’re still lying now you’re working for MI7. So don’t bother sending any more pieces of silver to my widow. It’s dirty money and we don’t want it. You Judas.’
Duncan has talked to Stone about Captain Pollard before Sean joined MI7.
Because Duncan had shot himself in the foot and was sent to a self-inflicted wound ward for investigation. Duncan remembers how an officer from military intelligence, ‘someone called Pollard’ visited the ward. Pollard, as a firearms expert, checked whether wounds were genuine or not and then made his report. He would walk down the line of beds and point to the terrified soldiers who he knew had caused their own wounds, ‘Him. Him. Him.’ They will face the firing squad. And then it came to Duncan’s turn. Pollard whispered to him, ‘You didn’t make a very good job of it, did you? It will leave you with a slight limp. So you can limp in front of the firing squad or you can limp back to the trenches. What would you prefer?’
So Duncan hates Pollard and Sean Stone knows Pollard’s terrifying reputation even before they meet at MI7.
There’s another reason Duncan is so hostile to Stone’s writing career: jealousy. When Stone’s first book The Young Contemptibles was published and became a best-seller, Duncan secretly tried writing a similar account of the platoon’s experiences in 1914. He carefully copied Stone’s style using new incidents and material he was involved in. But he lacked Stone’s style, the result of years of honing his craft and two book rejections. So Duncan’s book was turned down by other publishers. Stone’s publisher tells him about his ‘rival’ who continues to search for publishing success, even stealing one of Stone’s draft manuscripts and copying it. This led to an angry confrontation between Duncan and Stone. Stone asked him sarcastically if his rejected books include an account of how he shot himself in the foot? ‘You’re still doing it, aren’t you, Duncan?’ And then Duncan dies on the first day of the Battle of the Somme.
DEAN SCORER
He had been a legal clerk and this is reflected in his cautious words to Sean from beyond the grave. So he is not actually using words like ‘killing traitors’. He says. ‘Your efforts very much appreciated, Sean. Especially the royalties from your books you passed onto Sally. She and the little ones will have a nest egg now for the future. Thank you so much.’ He always sounds polite and reasonable in Sean’s dreams, but he is still insistent. ‘Your generosity should not prevent any potential action on your part, along the lines you have been considering. You will know to what I am referring.’
As Sean eventually bows to the pressure of his comrades and kills two traitors, Scorer praises him: ‘I’m very pleased that you are personally making progress. The two parties concerned have now joined us here in No Man’s Land. Well done.’
But Sean’s voices are not always negative. They encourage him and give him useful advice such as when he’s entered Room 38 where the top secret files naming the traitors are kept. ‘Make sure you leave this place the way you found it, son.’