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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Russell’s War

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…

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Mary 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…

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Mary 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…

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Mary 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…

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Mary 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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