Mary Russell’s War
Mary Russell’s War
One hundred years ago, the armies in Europe were locked head to head all along a line from the North Sea to Switzerland. In the past twelve months, hundreds of thousands had fallen, soldiers and civilians alike. An entire swath of Europe lay devastated, the technology of War was building. And Mary Russell met Sherlock…
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Last year on the centenary of the Great War’s beginnings,I began posting young Mary Russell’s War Journal. Her weekly reflections about the War, her drive to do something more than just be a fourteen year-old girl, (her mother is raising money for the British air force) and her suspicions about German spies weave in and…
Read MoreMary Russell’s War Journal (thirty-six): Russell off to War
6 April 1915 A slight hitch in my plans has occurred with the discovery that identity papers are not readily forged by a person with naught but an amateur’s workshop. However, by asking around among the village troublemakers, I discovered a man in Eastbourne who can provide the necessary documents, and I have paid…
Read MoreMary Russell’s War Journal (thirty-five): The march of women
30 March 1915 In the past week, the Times has continued to shrink in pages, and expand in its messages of desperation. Letters from the Front speak of A DOCTOR IN THE BATTLE LINE and his AMBULANCE WORK UNDER FIRE, from Neuve Chapelle: “It has been quite impossible to write lately, as there has…
Read MoreMary Russell’s War Journal (thirty-four): Conquest and carburetters
23 March 1915 This week has taught some interesting lessons, both in practical knowledge and, perhaps more valuable in the long run, in the subtle relationships between the sexes. Dr X and I (I decided I should probably not use his name, since my presence as his chauffeur is probably against a string of…
Read MoreMary Russell’s War Journal (thirty-three): Keeping one’s head down
16 March 1915 The juxtaposition of War with an attempt at maintaining the bastions of normal life is at times painful. For example, last Tuesday’s Times (which I did not receive until late on Wednesday) contained the following: NEW PROFESSIONS FOR WOMEN. That section of the field of labour hitherto regarded as the exclusive…
Read MoreMary Russell’s War Journal (thirty-two):old sweaters and Paris veils
9 March 1915 This month’s instalment of The Valley of Fear reached me two days ago, although I have to admit, it has not done much to clarify the mystery around the story’s murder. I could see from the very first that any victim whose head was all but obliterated by a shot-gun is…
Read MoreMary Russell’s War (thirty-one): the moated house
2 March 1915 Today is the second day of March, and there has been no sign of the month’s Strand. February’s issue did not come until the third of the month, and the post seems only to be getting slower. Perhaps the magazine should forswear the serialisation of its pieces for the duration of…
Read MoreMary Russell’s War (thirty): to the service of the King
23 February 1915 Each day, the young son of the village postmistress comes cycling up the lane to bring us, among the various requests from cook and aunt, my day’s copy of The Times. My aunt seems to think this inappropriate reading material, given my sex and age, but it is the newspaper my…
Read MoreMary Russell’s War (twenty-nine): a young lieutenant
16 February 1915 February is not a time of year where one may easily wander the Downlands with a Latin text in hand. If the pages are not blown asunder, they are rendered into sodden masses of the original pulp, and in either event, are difficult to manipulate by half-frozen fingers. So—needs must—I have…
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