Secret History: Charley's War 1917 – The Zeppelins

In Charley, at least, you will have the satisfaction of seeing the merchant of death cringing in his hellish factory, saying ‘I’ve got to get away. This place is a death trap!’

Welcome to my Secret History of Comics: my new book serialised on Substack. The first section was on Marshal Law: now it’s all about Charley’s War.

If you’re joining me for the first time, you can read the intro to the Secret History here, it’s available for everyone, and so is the intro to Charley’s War.

Every subsequent post has a free preview, but if you want access to my entire rant post, you’ll need to subscribe. Full access to ALL of my Secret History of Comics as I release them every week (plus other benefits, check them out), will set you back just £5 per month or £50 per year, and it helps me to continue giving you my best writing. I even have a free seven-day trial on Iconoblast, so you can try it first.

Before we get into it, I’ve got a small selection of signed copies of the Titan edition of Charley’s War for sale over on my Gumroad store. They’re not mint condition as they’ve been on my shelves and in boxes for a few years, so the covers have the odd scuff or scratch, but the interior pages are in good nick.

Now let’s get on with the story.

Blind Bob listening out for Zeppelins

An angry mob in the East End of London

The perilous Zeppelin

Charley meets his mum’s boss

Back in London, there is an endearing scene where Charley thinks the Ritz Hotel is named after Old Bill’s dug-out in the trenches! ‘Charley’ was a good choice of name with its association with ‘a proper Charlie’ and Charlie Chaplin. If the series had been called Fred’s War or Bill’s War, it may well have had a different feeling.

And now, just after the district of Silvertown was blown up and five hundred people were killed, a new danger looms for Charley: the Zeppelins, because the munitions factory where his mum works is a prime target. He saves Crimean War veteran Blind Bob, who tries to top himself rather than be sent to the workhouse. But Bob, with the enhanced hearing of the blind, can hear that the Zeppelins are coming!

The drama that follows I found as exciting to read today as at the time. We can feel the justified anger and hatred of the civilians towards the ‘baby killers’. Although it’s worth remembering the British also dropped 660 tons of bombs on Germany, more than twice the amount that Germany had managed to drop on England.