Friday, August 29, 2014
Phone Phreaking
A phone phreak is someone who loves exploring the telephone system and experimenting with it to understand how it works. Phone phreaking got its start in the late 1950s. Its golden age was the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Phone phreaks spent a lot of time dialing around the telephone network to understand how the phone system worked. They listened to the clicks and clunks and beeps and boops to figure out how calls were routed. They read obscure telephone company technical journals. They learned how to impersonate operators and other telephone company personnel. They dug through telephone company trash bins to find "secret" documents. They solved puzzles. They snuck into telephone company buildings at night and wired up their own telephones. They soldered. They built clever little electronic devices called blue boxes, black boxes, and red boxes to help them explore the network -- and make free phone calls. They hung out on early conference call circuits and "loop arounds" to communicate with one another. They wrote their own newsletters to spread information.
Some used their blue boxes to wiretap people. Many were investigated by the police and FBI. Some were arrested. Some informed on their friends. A few went to prison.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
All You Zombies
By Robert A. Heinlein
2217 Time Zone V (EST) 7 Nov. 1970-NTC- "Pop's Place": I was polishing a brandy snifter when the Unmarried Mother came in. I noted the time-10: 17 P. M. zone five, or eastern time, November 7th, 1970. Temporal agents always notice time and date; we must.
The Unmarried Mother was a man twenty-five years old, no taller than I am, childish features and a touchy temper. I didn't like his looks - I never had - but he was a lad I was here to recruit, he was my boy. I gave him my best barkeep's smile.
Maybe I'm too critical. He wasn't swish; his nickname came from what he always said when some nosy type asked him his line: "I'm an unmarried mother. -- If he felt less than murderous he would add: "at four cents a word. I write confession stories. --
If he felt nasty, he would wait for somebody to make something of it. He had a lethal style of infighting, like a female cop - reason I wanted him. Not the only one.
He had a load on, and his face showed that he despised people more than usual. Silently I poured a double shot of Old Underwear and left the bottle. He drank it, poured another.
I wiped the bar top. -- How's the "Unmarried Mother" racket? --
His fingers tightened on the glass and he seemed about to throw it at me; I felt for the sap under the bar. In temporal manipulation you try to figure everything, but there are so many factors that you never take needless risks.
I saw him relax that tiny amount they teach you to watch for in the Bureau's training school. -- Sorry, " I said. -- Just asking, "How's business? " Make it "How's the weather?
He looked sour. -- Business is okay. I write 'em, they print 'em, I eat. --
I poured myself one, leaned toward him. -- Matter of fact, " I said, "you write a nice stick - I've sampled a few. You have an amazingly sure touch with the woman's angle. --
It was a slip I had to risk; he never admitted what pen-names he used. But he was boiled enough to pick up only the last: "'Woman's angle! "" he repeated with a snort. -- Yeah, I know the woman's angle. I should. --
"So? -- I said doubtfully. -- Sisters? --
"No. You wouldn't believe me if I told you. --
"Now, now, " I answered mildly, "bartenders and psychiatrists learn that nothing is stranger than truth. Why, son, if you heard the stories I do-well, you'd make yourself rich. Incredible. --
"You don't know what "incredible" means! "
"So? Nothing astonishes me. I've always heard worse. --
He snorted again. -- Want to bet the rest of the bottle? --
"I'll bet a full bottle. -- I placed one on the bar.
"Well-" I signaled my other bartender to handle the trade. We were at the far end, a single-stool space that I kept private by loading the bar top by it with jars of pickled eggs and other clutter. A few were at the other end watching the fights and somebody was playing the juke box-private as a bed where we were.
"Okay, " he began, "to start with, I'm a bastard. --
"No distinction around here, " I said.
"I mean it, " he snapped. -- My parents weren't married. --
"Still no distinction, " I insisted. -- Neither were mine. --
"When-" He stopped, gave me the first warm look I ever saw on him. -- You mean that? --
"I do. A one-hundred-percent bastard. In fact, " I added, "no one in my family ever marries. All bastards.
"Oh, that. -- I showed it to him. -- It just looks like a wedding ring; I wear it to keep women off. -- It is an antique I bought in 1985 from a fellow operative - he had fetched it from pre-Christian Crete. -- The Worm Ouroboros... the World Snake that eats its own tail, forever without end. A symbol of the Great Paradox. --
He barely glanced at it. -- if you're really a bastard, you know how it feels. When I was a little girl"
"Wups! " I said. -- Did I hear you correctly? --
"'Who's telling this story? When I was a little girl-Look, ever hear of Christine Jorgenson? Or Roberta Cowell?
"Uh, sex-change cases? You're trying to tell me-"
"Don't interrupt or swelp me, I won't talk. I was a foundling, left at an orphanage in Cleveland in 1945 when I was a month old. When I was a little girl, I envied kids with parents. Then, when I learned about sex-and, believe me, Pop, you learn fast in an orphanage-"
"I know "
"-I made a solemn vow that any kid of mine would have both a pop and a mom. It kept me "pure, " quite a feat in that vicinity - I had to learn to fight to manage it. Then I got older and realized I stood darn little chance of getting married - for the same reason I hadn't been adopted --. He scowled. I was horse-faced and buck-toothed, flat-chested and straight-haired.
"You don't look any worse than I do. --
"Who cares how a barkeep looks? Or a writer? But people wanting to adopt pick little blue-eyed golden-haired moron. Later on, the boys want bulging breasts, a cute face, and an Oh-you-wonderful-male manner. -- He shrugged. I couldn't compete. So I decided to join the W. E. N. C. H. E. S. --
Eh? --
"Women's Emergency National Corps, Hospitality & Entertainment Section, what they now call "Space Angels'-Auxiliary Nursing Group, Extraterrestrial Legions. --
I knew both terms, once I had them chronized. We use still a third name, it's that elite military service corps: Women's Hospitality Order Refortifying & Encouraging Spacemen. Vocabulary shift is the worst hurdle in time-jumps - did you know that "service station" once fractions? Once on an assignment in the Churchill Era, a woman said to me, "Meet me at the service station next door -- - which is not what it sounds; a service station" (then) wouldn't have a bed in it.
He went on: "It was when they first admitted you can't send men into space for months and years and not relieve the tension. You remember how the wowsers screamed? - that improved my chance, since volunteers were scarce. A gal had to be respectable, preferably virgin (they liked to train them from scratch), above average mentally, and stable emotionally. But most volunteers were old hookers, or neurotics who would crack up ten days off Earth. So I didn't need looks; if they accepted me, they would fix my buck teeth, put a wave in my hair, teach me to walk and dance and how to listen to a man pleasingly, and everything else - plus training for the prime duties. They would even use plastic surgery if it would help - nothing too good for our Boys.
"Best yet, they made sure you didn't get pregnant during your enlistment - and you were almost certain to marry at the end of your hitch. Same way today, A. N. G. E. L. S. marry spacers - they talk the language.
"When I was eighteen I was placed as a `mother's helper'. This family simply wanted a cheap servant, but I didn't mind as I couldn't enlist till I was twenty-one. I did housework and went to night school - pretending to continue my high school typing and shorthand but going to a charm class instead, to better my chances for enlistment.
"Then I met this city slicker with his hundred-dollar bills. -- He scowled. The no-good actually did have a wad of hundred-dollar bills. He showed me one night, told me to help myself.
"But I didn't. I liked him. He was the first man I ever met who was nice to me without trying games with me. I quit night school to see him oftener. It was the happiest time of my life.
"Then one night in the park the games began. --
He stopped. I said, "And then? --
"And then nothing! I never saw him again. He walked me home and told me he loved me-and kissed me good-night and never came back. -- He looked grim. -- If I could find him, I'd kill him! "
"Well, " I sympathized, "I know how you feel. But killing him-just for doing what comes naturally - hmm... Did you struggle? --
"Huh? What's that got to do with it? --
"Quite a bit. Maybe he deserves a couple of broken arms for running out on you, but-"
"He deserves worse than that! Wait till you hear. Somehow I kept anyone from suspecting and decided it was all for the best. I hadn't really loved him and probably would never love anybody-and I was more eager to join theWE. N. C. H. E. S. than ever. I wasn't disqualified, they didn't insist on virgins. I cheered up.
"It wasn't until my skirts got tight that I realized.
"Pregnant? --
"He had me higher "n a kite! Those skinflints I lived with ignored it as long as I could work-then kicked me out, and the orphanage wouldn't take me back. I landed in a charity ward surrounded by other big bellies and trotted bedpans until my time came.
"One night I found myself on an operating table, with a nurse saying, "Relax. Now breathe deeply. "
"I woke up in bed, numb from the chest down. My surgeon came in. "How do you feel? " he says cheerfully.
"Like a mummy. --
"Naturally. You're wrapped like one and full of dope to keep you numb. You'll get well-but a Cesarean isn't a hangnail.
" Cesarean" I said. "Doc - did I lose the baby? "
Oh, no. Your baby's fine. "
Oh. Boy or girl? "
"'A healthy little girt. Five pounds, three ounces. "
"I relaxed. It's something, to have made a baby. I told myself I would go somewhere and tack "Mrs. " on my name and let the kid think her papa was dead -no orphanage for my kid!
"But the surgeon was talking. "Tell me, uh-" He avoided my name. "did you ever think your glandular setup was odd? "
"I said, "Huh? Of course not. What are you driving at?"
"He hesitated. I'll give you this in one dose, then a hypo to let you sleep off your jitters. You'll have 'em. "
"'Why? I demanded.
Ever hear of that Scottish physician who was female until she was thirty-five? -then had surgery and became legally and medically a man? Got married. All okay. "
'What's that got to do with me? "
"'That's what I'm saying. You're a man. "
"I tried to sit up. What? "
"Take it easy. When I opened you, I found a mess. I sent for the Chief of Surgery while I got the baby out, then we held a consultation with you on the table-and worked for hours to salvage what we could. You had two full sets of organs, both immature, but with the female set well enough developed for you to have a baby. They could never be any use to you again, so we took them out and rearranged things so that you can develop properly as a man. He put a hand on me. "Don't worry. You're young, your bones will readjust, we'll watch your glandular balance - and make a fine young man out of you. "
"I started to cry. "What about my baby? "
"Well, you can't nurse her, you haven't milk enough for a kitten. If I were you, I wouldn't see her-put her up for adoption. "
"'No! "
"He shrugged. "The choice is yours; you're her mother - well, her parent. But don't worry now; we'll get you well first. "
"Next day they let me see the kid and I saw her daily - trying to get used to her. I had never seen a brand-new baby and had no idea how awful they look - my daughter looked like an orange monkey. My feelings changed to cold determination to do right by her. But four weeks later that didn't mean anything. --
"Eh? --
"She was snatched. --
"'Snatched? --
The Unmarried Mother almost knocked over the bottle we had bet. -- Kidnapped - stolen from the hospital nursery! " He breathed hard. -- How's that for taking the last a man's got to live for? --
"A bad deal, " I agreed. -- Let's pour you another. No clues? --
"Nothing the police could trace. Somebody came to see her, claimed to be her uncle. While the nurse had her back turned, he walked out with her. --
"Description? --
"Just a man, with a face-shaped face, like yours or mine. -- He frowned. -- I think it was the baby's father. The nurse swore it was an older man but he probably used makeup. Who else would swipe my baby? Childless women pull such stunts - but whoever heard of a man doing it? --
"What happened to you then? --
"Eleven more months of that grim place and three operations. In four months I started to grow a beard; before I was out I was shaving regularly... and no longer doubted that I was male. -- He grinned wryly. -- I was staring down nurses necklines. --
"Well, " I said, "seems to me you came through okay. Here you are, a normal man, making good money, no real troubles. And the life of a female is not an easy one. --
He glared at me. -- A lot you know about it! "
"So? --
"Ever hear the expression "a ruined woman'? --
"Mmm, years ago. Doesn't mean much today. --
"I was as ruined as a woman can be; that bum really ruined me - I was no longer a woman... and I didn't know how to be a man. --
"Takes getting used to, I suppose. --
"You have no idea. I don't mean learning how to dress, or not walking into the wrong rest room; I learned those in the hospital. But how could I live? What job could I get? Hell, I couldn't even drive a car. I didn't know a trade; I couldn't do manual labor-too much scar tissue, too tender.
"I hated him for having ruined me for the W. E. N. C. H. E. S., too, but I didn't know how much until I tried to join the Space Corps instead. One look at my belly and I was marked unfit for military service. The medical officer spent time on me just from curiosity; he had read about my case.
"So I changed my name and came to New York. I got by as a fry cook, then rented a typewriter and set myself up as a public stenographer - what a laugh! In four months I typed four letters and one manuscript. The manuscript was for Real Life Tales and a waste of paper, but the goof who wrote it sold it. Which gave me an idea; I bought a stack of confession magazines and studied them. -- He looked cynical. -- Now you know how I get the authentic woman's angle on
an unmarried-mother story... through the only version I haven't sold - the true one. Do I win the bottle? --
I pushed it toward him. I was upset myself, but there was work to do. I said, "Son, you still want to lay hands on that so-and-so? --
His eyes lighted up-a feral gleam.
"Hold it! " I said. -- You wouldn't kill him? --
He chuckled nastily. -- Try me. --
"Take it easy. I know more about it than you think I do. I can help you. I know where he is. --
He reached across the bar. -- Where is he? --
I said softly, "Let go my shirt, sonny-or you'll land in the alley and we'll tell the cops you fainted. -- I showed him the sap.
He let go. -- Sorry. But where is he? -- He looked at me. -- And how do you know so much? --
"All in good time. There are records - hospital records, orphanage records, medical records. The matron of your orphanage was Mrs. Fetherage - right? She was followed by Mrs. Gruenstein - right? Your name, as a girl, was "Jane" - right? And you didn't tell me any of this - right? --
I had him baffled and a bit scared. -- What's this? You trying to make trouble for me? --
"No indeed. I've your welfare at heart. I can put this character in your lap. You do to him as you see fit - and I guarantee that you'll get away with it. But I don't think you'll kill him. You'd be nuts to - and you aren't nuts. Not quite. --
He brushed it aside. -- Cut the noise. Where is he? --
I poured him a short one; he was drunk, but anger was offsetting it. -- Not so fast. I do something for you - you do something for me. --
"Uh... what? --
"You don't like your work. What would you say to high pay, steady work, unlimited expense account, your own boss on the job, and lots of variety and adventure? --
He stared. -- I'd say, "Get those goddam reindeer off my roof! " Shove it, Pop - there's no such job. --
"Okay, put it this way: I hand him to you, you settle with him, then try my job. If it's not all I claim - well, I can't hold you. --
He was wavering; the last drink did it "When d'yuh d'liver 'im? -- he said thickly.
He shoved out his hand. -- It's a deal! "
"If it's a deal-right now! "
I nodded to my assistant to watch both ends, noted the time - 2300 - started to duck through the gate under the bar - when the juke box blared out: "I'm My Own Grandpaw! " The service man had orders to load it with Americana and classics because I couldn't stomach the "music" of 1970, but I hadn't known that tape was in it. I called out, "Shut that off! Give the customer his money back. -- I added, "Storeroom, back in a moment, " and headed there with my Unmarried Mother following.
It was down the passage across from the johns, a steel door to which no one but my day manager and myselfhad a key; inside was a door to an inner room to which only I had a key. We went there.
He looked blearily around at windowless walls. – Where is he? --
"Right away. -- I opened a case, the only thing in the room; it was a U. S. F. F. Coordinates Transformer Field Kit, series 1992, Mod. II - a beauty, no moving parts, weight twenty-three kilos fully charged, and shaped to pass as a suitcase. I had adjusted it precisely earlier that day; all I had to do was to shake out the metal net which limits the transformation field.
Which I did. -- What's that? -- he demanded.
"Time machine, " I said and tossed the net over us.
"Hey! " he yelled and stepped back. There is a technique to this; the net has to be thrown so that the subject will instinctively step back onto the metal mesh, then you close the net with both of you inside completely-else you might leave shoe soles behind or a piece of foot, or scoop up a slice of floor. But that's all the skill it takes. Some agents con a subject into the net; I tell the truth and use that instant of utter astonishment to flip the switch. Which I did.
1030-VI-3 April 1963 - Cleveland, Ohio-Apex Bldg.: "Hey! " he repeated. -- Take this damn thing off! "
"Sorry, " I apologized and did so, stuffed the net into the case, closed it. -- You said you wanted to find him. --
"But - you said that was a time machine! "
I pointed out a window. -- Does that look like November? Or New York? -- While he was gawking at new buds and spring weather, I reopened the case, took out a packet of hundred-dollar bills, checked that the numbers and signatures were compatible with 1963. The Temporal Bureau doesn't care how much you spend (it costs nothing) but they don't like unnecessary anachronisms. Too many mistakes, and a general court-martial will exile you for a year in a nasty period, say 1974 with its strict rationing and forced labor. I never make such mistakes; the money was okay.
He turned around and said, "What happened? --
"He's here. Go outside and take him. Here's expense money. -- I shoved it at him and added, "Settle him, then I'll pick you up. --
Hundred-dollar bills have a hypnotic effect on a person not used to them. He was thumbing them unbelievingly as I eased him into the hall, locked him out. The next jump was easy, a small shift in era.
7100-VI-10 March 1964 - Cleveland-Apex Bldg.: There was a notice under the door saying that my lease expired next week; otherwise the room looked as it had a moment before. Outside, trees were bare and snow threatened; I hurried, stopping only for contemporary money and a coat, hat, and topcoat I had left there when I leased the room. I hired a car, went to the hospital. It took twenty minutes to bore the nursery attendant to the point where I could swipe the baby without being noticed. We went back to the Apex Building. This dial setting was more involved, as the building did not yet exist in 1945. But I had precalculated it.
0100-VI-20 Sept. 1945 - Cleveland-Skyview Motel:: Field kit, baby, and I arrived in a motel outside town. Earlier I had registered as "Gregory Johnson, Warren, Ohio, " so we arrived in a room with curtains closed, windows locked, and doors bolted, and the floor cleared to allow for waver as the machine hunts. You can get a nasty bruise from a chair where it shouldn't be - not the chair, of course, but backlash from the field.
No trouble. Jane was sleeping soundly; I carried her out, put her in a grocery box on the seat of a car I had provided earlier, drove to the orphanage, put her on the steps, drove two blocks to a "service station" (the petroleum-products sort) and phoned the orphanage, drove back in time to see them taking the box inside, kept going and abandoned the car near the motel - walked to it and jumped forward to the Apex Building in 1963.
2200-VI-24 April 1963 - Cleveland-Apex Bldg.: I had cut the time rather fine - temporal accuracy depends on span, except on return to zero. If I had it right, Jane was discovering, out in the park this balmy spring night, that she wasn't quite as nice a girl as she had thought., I grabbed a taxi to the home of those skinflints, had the hackie wait around a comer while I lurked in shadows.
Presently I spotted them down the street, arms around each other. He took her up on the porch and made a long job of kissing her good-night-longer than I thought. Then she went in and he came down the walk, turned away. I slid into step and hooked an arm in his. -- That's all, son, " I announced quietly. -- I'm back to pick you up. --
"You! " He gasped and caught his breath.
"Me. Now you know who he is - and after you think it over you'll know who you are... and if you think hard enough, you'll figure out who the baby is... and who I am. --
He didn't answer, he was badly shaken. It's a shock to have it proved to you that you can't resist seducing yourself. I took him to the Apex Building and we jumped again.
2300-VIII, 12 Aug. 1985-Sub Rockies Base: I woke the duty sergeant, showed my I. D., told the sergeant to bed my companion down with a happy pill and recruit him in the morning. The sergeant looked sour, but rank is rank, regardless of era; he did what I said-thinking, no doubt, that the next time we met he might be the colonel and I the sergeant. Which can happen in our corps. -- What name? -- he asked.
I wrote it out. He raised his eyebrows. -- Like so, eh? Hmm-"
"You just do your job, Sergeant. -- I turned to my companion.
"Son, your troubles are over. You're about to start the best job a man ever held-and you'll do well. I know. --
"That you will! " agreed the sergeant. -- Look at me - born in 1917-still around, still young, still enjoying life. -- I went back to the jump room, set everything on preselected zero.
2301-V-7 Nov. 1970-NYC -"Pop's Place": I came out of the storeroom carrying a fifth of Drambuie to account for the minute I had been gone. My assistant was arguing with the customer who had been playing "I'm My Own Grand-paw! " I said, "Oh, let him play it, then unplug it. -- I was very tired.
It's rough, but somebody must do it, and it's very hard to recruit anyone in the later years, since the Mistake of 1972. Can you think of a better source than to pick people all fouled up where they are and give them well-paid, interesting (even though dangerous) work in a necessary cause? Everybody knows now why the Fizzle War of 1963 fizzled. The bomb with New York's number on it didn't go off, a hundred other things didn't go as planned-all arranged by the likes of me.
But not the Mistake of "72; that one is not our fault-and can't be undone; there's no paradox to resolve. A thing either is, or it isn't, now and forever amen. But there won't be another like it; an order dated "1992" takes precedence any year.
I closed five minutes early, leaving a letter in the cash register telling my day manager that I was accepting his offer to buy me out, to see my lawyer as I was leaving on a long vacation. The Bureau might or might not pick up his payments, but they want things left tidy. I went to the room in the back of the storeroom and forward to 1993.
2200-VII- 12 Jan 1993-Sub Rockies Annex-HQ Temporal DOL: I checked in with the duty officer and went to my quarters, intending to sleep for a week. I had fetched the bottle we bet (after all, I won it) and took a drink before I wrote my report. It tasted foul, and I wondered why I had ever liked Old Underwear. But it was better than nothing; I don't like to be cold sober, I think too much. But I don't really hit the bottle either; other people have snakes-I have people.
I dictated my report; forty recruitments all okayed by the Psych Bureau - counting my own, which I knew would be okayed. I was here, wasn't I? Then I taped a request for assignment to operations; I was sick of recruiting. I dropped both in the slot and headed for bed.
My eye fell on "The By-Laws of Time, " over my bed:
Never Do Yesterday What Should Be Done Tomorrow.
If at Last You Do Succeed, Never Try Again.
A Stitch in Time Saves Nine Billion.
A Paradox May Be Paradoctored.
It Is Earlier When You Think.
Ancestors Are Just People.
Even Jove Nods.
They didn't inspire me the way they had when I was a recruit; thirty subjective-years of time-jumping wears you down. I undressed, and when I got down to the hide I looked at my belly. A Cesarean leaves a big scar, but I'm so hairy now that I don't notice it unless I look for it.
Then I glanced at the ring on my finger.
The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail, Forever and Ever. I know where I came from - but where did all you zombies come from?
I felt a headache coming on, but a headache powder is one thing I do not take. I did once - and you all went away.
So I crawled into bed and whistled out the light.
You aren't really there at all. There isn't anybody but me - Jane - here alone in the dark.
I miss you dreadfully!
2217 Time Zone V (EST) 7 Nov. 1970-NTC- "Pop's Place": I was polishing a brandy snifter when the Unmarried Mother came in. I noted the time-10: 17 P. M. zone five, or eastern time, November 7th, 1970. Temporal agents always notice time and date; we must.
The Unmarried Mother was a man twenty-five years old, no taller than I am, childish features and a touchy temper. I didn't like his looks - I never had - but he was a lad I was here to recruit, he was my boy. I gave him my best barkeep's smile.
Maybe I'm too critical. He wasn't swish; his nickname came from what he always said when some nosy type asked him his line: "I'm an unmarried mother. -- If he felt less than murderous he would add: "at four cents a word. I write confession stories. --
If he felt nasty, he would wait for somebody to make something of it. He had a lethal style of infighting, like a female cop - reason I wanted him. Not the only one.
He had a load on, and his face showed that he despised people more than usual. Silently I poured a double shot of Old Underwear and left the bottle. He drank it, poured another.
I wiped the bar top. -- How's the "Unmarried Mother" racket? --
His fingers tightened on the glass and he seemed about to throw it at me; I felt for the sap under the bar. In temporal manipulation you try to figure everything, but there are so many factors that you never take needless risks.
I saw him relax that tiny amount they teach you to watch for in the Bureau's training school. -- Sorry, " I said. -- Just asking, "How's business? " Make it "How's the weather?
He looked sour. -- Business is okay. I write 'em, they print 'em, I eat. --
I poured myself one, leaned toward him. -- Matter of fact, " I said, "you write a nice stick - I've sampled a few. You have an amazingly sure touch with the woman's angle. --
It was a slip I had to risk; he never admitted what pen-names he used. But he was boiled enough to pick up only the last: "'Woman's angle! "" he repeated with a snort. -- Yeah, I know the woman's angle. I should. --
"So? -- I said doubtfully. -- Sisters? --
"No. You wouldn't believe me if I told you. --
"Now, now, " I answered mildly, "bartenders and psychiatrists learn that nothing is stranger than truth. Why, son, if you heard the stories I do-well, you'd make yourself rich. Incredible. --
"You don't know what "incredible" means! "
"So? Nothing astonishes me. I've always heard worse. --
He snorted again. -- Want to bet the rest of the bottle? --
"I'll bet a full bottle. -- I placed one on the bar.
"Well-" I signaled my other bartender to handle the trade. We were at the far end, a single-stool space that I kept private by loading the bar top by it with jars of pickled eggs and other clutter. A few were at the other end watching the fights and somebody was playing the juke box-private as a bed where we were.
"Okay, " he began, "to start with, I'm a bastard. --
"No distinction around here, " I said.
"I mean it, " he snapped. -- My parents weren't married. --
"Still no distinction, " I insisted. -- Neither were mine. --
"When-" He stopped, gave me the first warm look I ever saw on him. -- You mean that? --
"I do. A one-hundred-percent bastard. In fact, " I added, "no one in my family ever marries. All bastards.
"Oh, that. -- I showed it to him. -- It just looks like a wedding ring; I wear it to keep women off. -- It is an antique I bought in 1985 from a fellow operative - he had fetched it from pre-Christian Crete. -- The Worm Ouroboros... the World Snake that eats its own tail, forever without end. A symbol of the Great Paradox. --
He barely glanced at it. -- if you're really a bastard, you know how it feels. When I was a little girl"
"Wups! " I said. -- Did I hear you correctly? --
"'Who's telling this story? When I was a little girl-Look, ever hear of Christine Jorgenson? Or Roberta Cowell?
"Uh, sex-change cases? You're trying to tell me-"
"Don't interrupt or swelp me, I won't talk. I was a foundling, left at an orphanage in Cleveland in 1945 when I was a month old. When I was a little girl, I envied kids with parents. Then, when I learned about sex-and, believe me, Pop, you learn fast in an orphanage-"
"I know "
"-I made a solemn vow that any kid of mine would have both a pop and a mom. It kept me "pure, " quite a feat in that vicinity - I had to learn to fight to manage it. Then I got older and realized I stood darn little chance of getting married - for the same reason I hadn't been adopted --. He scowled. I was horse-faced and buck-toothed, flat-chested and straight-haired.
"You don't look any worse than I do. --
"Who cares how a barkeep looks? Or a writer? But people wanting to adopt pick little blue-eyed golden-haired moron. Later on, the boys want bulging breasts, a cute face, and an Oh-you-wonderful-male manner. -- He shrugged. I couldn't compete. So I decided to join the W. E. N. C. H. E. S. --
Eh? --
"Women's Emergency National Corps, Hospitality & Entertainment Section, what they now call "Space Angels'-Auxiliary Nursing Group, Extraterrestrial Legions. --
I knew both terms, once I had them chronized. We use still a third name, it's that elite military service corps: Women's Hospitality Order Refortifying & Encouraging Spacemen. Vocabulary shift is the worst hurdle in time-jumps - did you know that "service station" once fractions? Once on an assignment in the Churchill Era, a woman said to me, "Meet me at the service station next door -- - which is not what it sounds; a service station" (then) wouldn't have a bed in it.
He went on: "It was when they first admitted you can't send men into space for months and years and not relieve the tension. You remember how the wowsers screamed? - that improved my chance, since volunteers were scarce. A gal had to be respectable, preferably virgin (they liked to train them from scratch), above average mentally, and stable emotionally. But most volunteers were old hookers, or neurotics who would crack up ten days off Earth. So I didn't need looks; if they accepted me, they would fix my buck teeth, put a wave in my hair, teach me to walk and dance and how to listen to a man pleasingly, and everything else - plus training for the prime duties. They would even use plastic surgery if it would help - nothing too good for our Boys.
"Best yet, they made sure you didn't get pregnant during your enlistment - and you were almost certain to marry at the end of your hitch. Same way today, A. N. G. E. L. S. marry spacers - they talk the language.
"When I was eighteen I was placed as a `mother's helper'. This family simply wanted a cheap servant, but I didn't mind as I couldn't enlist till I was twenty-one. I did housework and went to night school - pretending to continue my high school typing and shorthand but going to a charm class instead, to better my chances for enlistment.
"Then I met this city slicker with his hundred-dollar bills. -- He scowled. The no-good actually did have a wad of hundred-dollar bills. He showed me one night, told me to help myself.
"But I didn't. I liked him. He was the first man I ever met who was nice to me without trying games with me. I quit night school to see him oftener. It was the happiest time of my life.
"Then one night in the park the games began. --
He stopped. I said, "And then? --
"And then nothing! I never saw him again. He walked me home and told me he loved me-and kissed me good-night and never came back. -- He looked grim. -- If I could find him, I'd kill him! "
"Well, " I sympathized, "I know how you feel. But killing him-just for doing what comes naturally - hmm... Did you struggle? --
"Huh? What's that got to do with it? --
"Quite a bit. Maybe he deserves a couple of broken arms for running out on you, but-"
"He deserves worse than that! Wait till you hear. Somehow I kept anyone from suspecting and decided it was all for the best. I hadn't really loved him and probably would never love anybody-and I was more eager to join theWE. N. C. H. E. S. than ever. I wasn't disqualified, they didn't insist on virgins. I cheered up.
"It wasn't until my skirts got tight that I realized.
"Pregnant? --
"He had me higher "n a kite! Those skinflints I lived with ignored it as long as I could work-then kicked me out, and the orphanage wouldn't take me back. I landed in a charity ward surrounded by other big bellies and trotted bedpans until my time came.
"One night I found myself on an operating table, with a nurse saying, "Relax. Now breathe deeply. "
"I woke up in bed, numb from the chest down. My surgeon came in. "How do you feel? " he says cheerfully.
"Like a mummy. --
"Naturally. You're wrapped like one and full of dope to keep you numb. You'll get well-but a Cesarean isn't a hangnail.
" Cesarean" I said. "Doc - did I lose the baby? "
Oh, no. Your baby's fine. "
Oh. Boy or girl? "
"'A healthy little girt. Five pounds, three ounces. "
"I relaxed. It's something, to have made a baby. I told myself I would go somewhere and tack "Mrs. " on my name and let the kid think her papa was dead -no orphanage for my kid!
"But the surgeon was talking. "Tell me, uh-" He avoided my name. "did you ever think your glandular setup was odd? "
"I said, "Huh? Of course not. What are you driving at?"
"He hesitated. I'll give you this in one dose, then a hypo to let you sleep off your jitters. You'll have 'em. "
"'Why? I demanded.
Ever hear of that Scottish physician who was female until she was thirty-five? -then had surgery and became legally and medically a man? Got married. All okay. "
'What's that got to do with me? "
"'That's what I'm saying. You're a man. "
"I tried to sit up. What? "
"Take it easy. When I opened you, I found a mess. I sent for the Chief of Surgery while I got the baby out, then we held a consultation with you on the table-and worked for hours to salvage what we could. You had two full sets of organs, both immature, but with the female set well enough developed for you to have a baby. They could never be any use to you again, so we took them out and rearranged things so that you can develop properly as a man. He put a hand on me. "Don't worry. You're young, your bones will readjust, we'll watch your glandular balance - and make a fine young man out of you. "
"I started to cry. "What about my baby? "
"Well, you can't nurse her, you haven't milk enough for a kitten. If I were you, I wouldn't see her-put her up for adoption. "
"'No! "
"He shrugged. "The choice is yours; you're her mother - well, her parent. But don't worry now; we'll get you well first. "
"Next day they let me see the kid and I saw her daily - trying to get used to her. I had never seen a brand-new baby and had no idea how awful they look - my daughter looked like an orange monkey. My feelings changed to cold determination to do right by her. But four weeks later that didn't mean anything. --
"Eh? --
"She was snatched. --
"'Snatched? --
The Unmarried Mother almost knocked over the bottle we had bet. -- Kidnapped - stolen from the hospital nursery! " He breathed hard. -- How's that for taking the last a man's got to live for? --
"A bad deal, " I agreed. -- Let's pour you another. No clues? --
"Nothing the police could trace. Somebody came to see her, claimed to be her uncle. While the nurse had her back turned, he walked out with her. --
"Description? --
"Just a man, with a face-shaped face, like yours or mine. -- He frowned. -- I think it was the baby's father. The nurse swore it was an older man but he probably used makeup. Who else would swipe my baby? Childless women pull such stunts - but whoever heard of a man doing it? --
"What happened to you then? --
"Eleven more months of that grim place and three operations. In four months I started to grow a beard; before I was out I was shaving regularly... and no longer doubted that I was male. -- He grinned wryly. -- I was staring down nurses necklines. --
"Well, " I said, "seems to me you came through okay. Here you are, a normal man, making good money, no real troubles. And the life of a female is not an easy one. --
He glared at me. -- A lot you know about it! "
"So? --
"Ever hear the expression "a ruined woman'? --
"Mmm, years ago. Doesn't mean much today. --
"I was as ruined as a woman can be; that bum really ruined me - I was no longer a woman... and I didn't know how to be a man. --
"Takes getting used to, I suppose. --
"You have no idea. I don't mean learning how to dress, or not walking into the wrong rest room; I learned those in the hospital. But how could I live? What job could I get? Hell, I couldn't even drive a car. I didn't know a trade; I couldn't do manual labor-too much scar tissue, too tender.
"I hated him for having ruined me for the W. E. N. C. H. E. S., too, but I didn't know how much until I tried to join the Space Corps instead. One look at my belly and I was marked unfit for military service. The medical officer spent time on me just from curiosity; he had read about my case.
"So I changed my name and came to New York. I got by as a fry cook, then rented a typewriter and set myself up as a public stenographer - what a laugh! In four months I typed four letters and one manuscript. The manuscript was for Real Life Tales and a waste of paper, but the goof who wrote it sold it. Which gave me an idea; I bought a stack of confession magazines and studied them. -- He looked cynical. -- Now you know how I get the authentic woman's angle on
an unmarried-mother story... through the only version I haven't sold - the true one. Do I win the bottle? --
I pushed it toward him. I was upset myself, but there was work to do. I said, "Son, you still want to lay hands on that so-and-so? --
His eyes lighted up-a feral gleam.
"Hold it! " I said. -- You wouldn't kill him? --
He chuckled nastily. -- Try me. --
"Take it easy. I know more about it than you think I do. I can help you. I know where he is. --
He reached across the bar. -- Where is he? --
I said softly, "Let go my shirt, sonny-or you'll land in the alley and we'll tell the cops you fainted. -- I showed him the sap.
He let go. -- Sorry. But where is he? -- He looked at me. -- And how do you know so much? --
"All in good time. There are records - hospital records, orphanage records, medical records. The matron of your orphanage was Mrs. Fetherage - right? She was followed by Mrs. Gruenstein - right? Your name, as a girl, was "Jane" - right? And you didn't tell me any of this - right? --
I had him baffled and a bit scared. -- What's this? You trying to make trouble for me? --
"No indeed. I've your welfare at heart. I can put this character in your lap. You do to him as you see fit - and I guarantee that you'll get away with it. But I don't think you'll kill him. You'd be nuts to - and you aren't nuts. Not quite. --
He brushed it aside. -- Cut the noise. Where is he? --
I poured him a short one; he was drunk, but anger was offsetting it. -- Not so fast. I do something for you - you do something for me. --
"Uh... what? --
"You don't like your work. What would you say to high pay, steady work, unlimited expense account, your own boss on the job, and lots of variety and adventure? --
He stared. -- I'd say, "Get those goddam reindeer off my roof! " Shove it, Pop - there's no such job. --
"Okay, put it this way: I hand him to you, you settle with him, then try my job. If it's not all I claim - well, I can't hold you. --
He was wavering; the last drink did it "When d'yuh d'liver 'im? -- he said thickly.
He shoved out his hand. -- It's a deal! "
"If it's a deal-right now! "
I nodded to my assistant to watch both ends, noted the time - 2300 - started to duck through the gate under the bar - when the juke box blared out: "I'm My Own Grandpaw! " The service man had orders to load it with Americana and classics because I couldn't stomach the "music" of 1970, but I hadn't known that tape was in it. I called out, "Shut that off! Give the customer his money back. -- I added, "Storeroom, back in a moment, " and headed there with my Unmarried Mother following.
It was down the passage across from the johns, a steel door to which no one but my day manager and myselfhad a key; inside was a door to an inner room to which only I had a key. We went there.
He looked blearily around at windowless walls. – Where is he? --
"Right away. -- I opened a case, the only thing in the room; it was a U. S. F. F. Coordinates Transformer Field Kit, series 1992, Mod. II - a beauty, no moving parts, weight twenty-three kilos fully charged, and shaped to pass as a suitcase. I had adjusted it precisely earlier that day; all I had to do was to shake out the metal net which limits the transformation field.
Which I did. -- What's that? -- he demanded.
"Time machine, " I said and tossed the net over us.
"Hey! " he yelled and stepped back. There is a technique to this; the net has to be thrown so that the subject will instinctively step back onto the metal mesh, then you close the net with both of you inside completely-else you might leave shoe soles behind or a piece of foot, or scoop up a slice of floor. But that's all the skill it takes. Some agents con a subject into the net; I tell the truth and use that instant of utter astonishment to flip the switch. Which I did.
1030-VI-3 April 1963 - Cleveland, Ohio-Apex Bldg.: "Hey! " he repeated. -- Take this damn thing off! "
"Sorry, " I apologized and did so, stuffed the net into the case, closed it. -- You said you wanted to find him. --
"But - you said that was a time machine! "
I pointed out a window. -- Does that look like November? Or New York? -- While he was gawking at new buds and spring weather, I reopened the case, took out a packet of hundred-dollar bills, checked that the numbers and signatures were compatible with 1963. The Temporal Bureau doesn't care how much you spend (it costs nothing) but they don't like unnecessary anachronisms. Too many mistakes, and a general court-martial will exile you for a year in a nasty period, say 1974 with its strict rationing and forced labor. I never make such mistakes; the money was okay.
He turned around and said, "What happened? --
"He's here. Go outside and take him. Here's expense money. -- I shoved it at him and added, "Settle him, then I'll pick you up. --
Hundred-dollar bills have a hypnotic effect on a person not used to them. He was thumbing them unbelievingly as I eased him into the hall, locked him out. The next jump was easy, a small shift in era.
7100-VI-10 March 1964 - Cleveland-Apex Bldg.: There was a notice under the door saying that my lease expired next week; otherwise the room looked as it had a moment before. Outside, trees were bare and snow threatened; I hurried, stopping only for contemporary money and a coat, hat, and topcoat I had left there when I leased the room. I hired a car, went to the hospital. It took twenty minutes to bore the nursery attendant to the point where I could swipe the baby without being noticed. We went back to the Apex Building. This dial setting was more involved, as the building did not yet exist in 1945. But I had precalculated it.
0100-VI-20 Sept. 1945 - Cleveland-Skyview Motel:: Field kit, baby, and I arrived in a motel outside town. Earlier I had registered as "Gregory Johnson, Warren, Ohio, " so we arrived in a room with curtains closed, windows locked, and doors bolted, and the floor cleared to allow for waver as the machine hunts. You can get a nasty bruise from a chair where it shouldn't be - not the chair, of course, but backlash from the field.
No trouble. Jane was sleeping soundly; I carried her out, put her in a grocery box on the seat of a car I had provided earlier, drove to the orphanage, put her on the steps, drove two blocks to a "service station" (the petroleum-products sort) and phoned the orphanage, drove back in time to see them taking the box inside, kept going and abandoned the car near the motel - walked to it and jumped forward to the Apex Building in 1963.
2200-VI-24 April 1963 - Cleveland-Apex Bldg.: I had cut the time rather fine - temporal accuracy depends on span, except on return to zero. If I had it right, Jane was discovering, out in the park this balmy spring night, that she wasn't quite as nice a girl as she had thought., I grabbed a taxi to the home of those skinflints, had the hackie wait around a comer while I lurked in shadows.
Presently I spotted them down the street, arms around each other. He took her up on the porch and made a long job of kissing her good-night-longer than I thought. Then she went in and he came down the walk, turned away. I slid into step and hooked an arm in his. -- That's all, son, " I announced quietly. -- I'm back to pick you up. --
"You! " He gasped and caught his breath.
"Me. Now you know who he is - and after you think it over you'll know who you are... and if you think hard enough, you'll figure out who the baby is... and who I am. --
He didn't answer, he was badly shaken. It's a shock to have it proved to you that you can't resist seducing yourself. I took him to the Apex Building and we jumped again.
2300-VIII, 12 Aug. 1985-Sub Rockies Base: I woke the duty sergeant, showed my I. D., told the sergeant to bed my companion down with a happy pill and recruit him in the morning. The sergeant looked sour, but rank is rank, regardless of era; he did what I said-thinking, no doubt, that the next time we met he might be the colonel and I the sergeant. Which can happen in our corps. -- What name? -- he asked.
I wrote it out. He raised his eyebrows. -- Like so, eh? Hmm-"
"You just do your job, Sergeant. -- I turned to my companion.
"Son, your troubles are over. You're about to start the best job a man ever held-and you'll do well. I know. --
"That you will! " agreed the sergeant. -- Look at me - born in 1917-still around, still young, still enjoying life. -- I went back to the jump room, set everything on preselected zero.
2301-V-7 Nov. 1970-NYC -"Pop's Place": I came out of the storeroom carrying a fifth of Drambuie to account for the minute I had been gone. My assistant was arguing with the customer who had been playing "I'm My Own Grand-paw! " I said, "Oh, let him play it, then unplug it. -- I was very tired.
It's rough, but somebody must do it, and it's very hard to recruit anyone in the later years, since the Mistake of 1972. Can you think of a better source than to pick people all fouled up where they are and give them well-paid, interesting (even though dangerous) work in a necessary cause? Everybody knows now why the Fizzle War of 1963 fizzled. The bomb with New York's number on it didn't go off, a hundred other things didn't go as planned-all arranged by the likes of me.
But not the Mistake of "72; that one is not our fault-and can't be undone; there's no paradox to resolve. A thing either is, or it isn't, now and forever amen. But there won't be another like it; an order dated "1992" takes precedence any year.
I closed five minutes early, leaving a letter in the cash register telling my day manager that I was accepting his offer to buy me out, to see my lawyer as I was leaving on a long vacation. The Bureau might or might not pick up his payments, but they want things left tidy. I went to the room in the back of the storeroom and forward to 1993.
2200-VII- 12 Jan 1993-Sub Rockies Annex-HQ Temporal DOL: I checked in with the duty officer and went to my quarters, intending to sleep for a week. I had fetched the bottle we bet (after all, I won it) and took a drink before I wrote my report. It tasted foul, and I wondered why I had ever liked Old Underwear. But it was better than nothing; I don't like to be cold sober, I think too much. But I don't really hit the bottle either; other people have snakes-I have people.
I dictated my report; forty recruitments all okayed by the Psych Bureau - counting my own, which I knew would be okayed. I was here, wasn't I? Then I taped a request for assignment to operations; I was sick of recruiting. I dropped both in the slot and headed for bed.
My eye fell on "The By-Laws of Time, " over my bed:
Never Do Yesterday What Should Be Done Tomorrow.
If at Last You Do Succeed, Never Try Again.
A Stitch in Time Saves Nine Billion.
A Paradox May Be Paradoctored.
It Is Earlier When You Think.
Ancestors Are Just People.
Even Jove Nods.
They didn't inspire me the way they had when I was a recruit; thirty subjective-years of time-jumping wears you down. I undressed, and when I got down to the hide I looked at my belly. A Cesarean leaves a big scar, but I'm so hairy now that I don't notice it unless I look for it.
Then I glanced at the ring on my finger.
The Snake That Eats Its Own Tail, Forever and Ever. I know where I came from - but where did all you zombies come from?
I felt a headache coming on, but a headache powder is one thing I do not take. I did once - and you all went away.
So I crawled into bed and whistled out the light.
You aren't really there at all. There isn't anybody but me - Jane - here alone in the dark.
I miss you dreadfully!
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
The Battle at Landrecies
Following the fighting along and behind the Mons Canal on 23rd and 24th August 1914, the BEF retreated south before the oncoming German First Army; the British II Corps and the Cavalry Division taking the route to the west of the Forest of Mormal, a dense area of woodland, 10 miles from north to south and 6 miles across; the British I Corps marching down the route of the Sambre River to the east of the forest (see map on Le Cateau at http://www.britishbattles.com/firstww/battle-le-cateau.htm).
The fortress of Mauberge prepared to resist the German advance, with its French garrison. The British I Corps marched through the gap between Mauberge and the Forest of Mormal, sharing the congested roads with French army formations, and the flood of French and Belgian civilian refugees moving south, with all the belongings they could carry, to avoid the advancing German army.
On the night of 25th August 1914, units of the British I Corps, 2nd Division, halted at the villages of Noyelles (5th Brigade and XXXVI Brigade RFA), Maroilles (6th Brigade and XXXIV Brigade RFA), and Landrecies (4th (Guards) Brigade, XLI Field and XLIV Howitzer Brigades). A troop of the 15th Hussars, the divisional cavalry of 2nd Division, occupied the bridge at Maroilles.
The British Guards reached Landrecies during the afternoon of 25th August 1914, at the end of a ‘hurried and painful march’. 3rd Coldstream was the first battalion into Landrecies, and took up quarters in the French infantry barracks to the north of the town.
The pursuing Germans pushed forward to seize the crossings over the Sambre River at Ponts de Sambre, Maroilles and Landrecies, the German III and IV Corps moving south east, through and around the Forest of Mormal. The Germans were not expecting the BEF still to be on the Sambre River, and were pressing on to spend the night in comfortable billets on those towns.
The battle at Landrecies was as much a surprise for the Germans as it was for the British Guards; the German regimental transport was one of the leading formations when the fighting started, hurrying forward to ensure that there was a hot meal for the exhausted infantry, when they reached their destination.
The Grenadier Guard’s history states that a 15th Hussar rode into Landrecies at 4pm, with information that German troops were approaching. The 4th Guards Brigade turned out, and took up positions throughout the town, but stood down when no attack materialised.
In Maroilles, which was occupied by the British 6th Brigade, at around 5.30pm, there were rumours among the French civilian population that German troops were in the vicinity. The rumours were discounted, to the extent that the local mayor refused permission to the troop leader of the 15th Hussars, to destroy a house near to the bridge that obstructed the hussars’ field of fire.
In Landrecies, the information from the French civilians was more specific: the Germans were advancing on the town from the North West.
The rumours of the German approach caused the battalions of the 4th (Guards) Brigade to adopt defensive positions around Landrecies: 3rd Coldstream at the northern end of the town, 2nd Grenadiers on the western side, 2nd Coldstream on the eastern and southern edges of the town, and 1st Irish Guards fortifying the centre.
Sketch map of Landrecies, showing the positions of battalions of the
4th (Guards) Brigade in the evening of 25th August 1914.
Number 2 Company of 3rd Coldstream Guards, commanded by Captain Heywood, was in position at the northern end of the town, where the road to the North West forked into two routes, both leading around the southern end of the Forest of Mormal. The battalion machine gun section deployed at the forks, with one gun aimed down each road.
2nd Grenadiers were posted with Number 2 and 3 Companies, under Major Lord Bernard Lennox, at the railway level-crossing, deployed to either side of the road. Number 1 Company, under Major Hamilton, occupied positions on the left of these companies. Number 4 Company, under Captain Colston, held the bridge over the Sambre River. The battalion was directed to barricade the main street leading north, which they did using the battalion’s tool carts, leaving them immobile and thereby depriving the battalion of the tools for the rest of the campaign. Houses along the road were occupied and put in a state of defence.
Coldstream Guard Bank Picket before the Great War: picture by Harry Payne
During the afternoon, Number 2 Company of 3rd Coldstream Guards engaged German mounted patrols and drove them off, thus confirming the French reports.
One German Uhlan patrol was reported as penetrating, unopposed, into the centre of Landrecies (in fact they were Hussars: but the British tended to describe all German cavalry as ‘Uhlans’). These various attacks, and the Uhlan incursion, made the point forcibly to the brigade, that they could not assume, as they had until then, that there were other British infantry brigades between them and the Germans; the assumption being that the Germans would pursue the I Corps down the east side of the Forest of Mormal, rather than marching diagonally north west to south east through the forest, or around it to the south.
At 7pm, Heywood’s Number 2 Company of 3rd Coldstream was relieved by Captain Monck’s Number 3 Company. Monck received reports that French troops were expected through his position. In due course, a body of troops approached in the dusk, singing in French. Monck shouted a challenge and was answered in French. A flashlight was shined on the approaching troops. The leading files seemed to be in French uniforms, but they were followed by German troops (this seems likely to have been a misidentification in the dark, perhaps arising because the German troops in question were wearing forage hats and not helmets). Before the Coldstreamers could open fire, the Germans rushed the forward piquet, bayoneted the gunner at the machine gun, and dragged his gun away. Monck was knocked over in the rush. The piquet opened fire and the machine gun was recovered, the Germans falling back in the face of the British retaliation.
Landrecies: The Coldstream and Grenadier Guards hold the high street in Lancrecies during the surprise German attack on 4th Guards Brigade on 25th August 1914
With this attack, the brigade resumed the defensive positions prepared earlier in the evening.
During the night, the Germans launched repeated attacks down the two roads from the North West, all of which were held and driven back by 3rd Coldstream. The position of a farm building at the right hand end of the British line enabled the Germans to enfilade the Coldstream with a machine gun. The Germans were supported by a field gun, firing up the road. This gunfire set a haystack near the Coldstream line on fire. The sudden blaze illuminated the British troops, and made them easy targets. Private 5854 G. H.
Wyatt rushed forward and put out the blaze, under fire from the Germans, who were within 25 yards. Again the stack was ignited, and again Wyatt put the flames out.
One of the German attacks, infiltrating round the left flank of 3rd Coldstream, reached as far as the railway station, where it was repelled by the Grenadiers of Number 2 Company, commanded by Major Lord Bernard Lennox.
The Grenadiers machine gun section, commanded by Lieutenant Cecil, moved forward and provided additional support to the 3rd Coldstream, who were suffering from the fire of the single German field gun, directed down the street.
The 3rd Coldstream Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Fielding, brought up a howitzer from the supporting RFA battery. The howitzer was manhandled up to the level-crossing and opened fire on the German gun. The third round put the German gun out of action.
Close hand to hand fighting in Landrecies between 3rd Coldstream Guards
and German Infantry on 25th August 1914.
German attacks had also fallen on the east of the town. 1st Irish Guards launched a counter-attack in that area, at around 3am. The German attacks on the town lost their momentum and finally ceased in the early hours of 26th August 1914.
3rd Coldstream fell back into the town, their positions being taken over by 1st Irish Guards.
At dawn, the 4th (Guards) Brigade marched out of Landrecies to the south, heading for Étreux, unimpeded by the Germans. Instead of much needed rest, the brigade had spent the night fighting.
Many of the soldiers had left their kit in billets and were unable to retrieve it in the hurried withdrawal. During the next day the soldiers fell asleep, whenever there was a pause in the march, and could only be roused with difficulty.
As the brigade left Landrecies, the brigade’s field ambulance, Number 4, was ordered into the town to bring out the wounded left behind from the battle.
B and C sections of the ambulance moved back into Landrecies, passing the battalions as they marched south. The Germans occupied the town, while the British RAMC troops were still collecting the wounded, and the British medical staff and wounded were taken prisoner (10 medical officers up to the rank of colonel were captured). Only A section of the divisional ambulance escaped capture.
Casualties:
Most of the British casualties were suffered by 3rd Coldstream Guards, which lost 2 officers, Lieutenants Viscount Hawarden and Lieutenant Windsor-Clive, and 12 soldiers killed, and 3 officers, Captain Whitbread and Lieutenants Keppel and Rowley, and 105 soldiers wounded, with 11 soldiers missing, presumed killed or captured (Lieutenant Keppel was captured by the Germans). 2nd Grenadier Guards lost 1 officer killed, Lieutenant Vereker, and 6 soldiers wounded. Overall British casualties were given as 200, the balance being from the 2nd Coldstream, 1st Irish Guards and other units.
GHQ BEF estimated German casualties at between 700 and 1,000 men.
In fact the Germans lost 4 officers and 48 soldiers killed, 4 officers and 69 soldiers wounded, with 2 soldiers missing: a total of 127 casualties.
The fortress of Mauberge prepared to resist the German advance, with its French garrison. The British I Corps marched through the gap between Mauberge and the Forest of Mormal, sharing the congested roads with French army formations, and the flood of French and Belgian civilian refugees moving south, with all the belongings they could carry, to avoid the advancing German army.
On the night of 25th August 1914, units of the British I Corps, 2nd Division, halted at the villages of Noyelles (5th Brigade and XXXVI Brigade RFA), Maroilles (6th Brigade and XXXIV Brigade RFA), and Landrecies (4th (Guards) Brigade, XLI Field and XLIV Howitzer Brigades). A troop of the 15th Hussars, the divisional cavalry of 2nd Division, occupied the bridge at Maroilles.
The British Guards reached Landrecies during the afternoon of 25th August 1914, at the end of a ‘hurried and painful march’. 3rd Coldstream was the first battalion into Landrecies, and took up quarters in the French infantry barracks to the north of the town.
The pursuing Germans pushed forward to seize the crossings over the Sambre River at Ponts de Sambre, Maroilles and Landrecies, the German III and IV Corps moving south east, through and around the Forest of Mormal. The Germans were not expecting the BEF still to be on the Sambre River, and were pressing on to spend the night in comfortable billets on those towns.
The battle at Landrecies was as much a surprise for the Germans as it was for the British Guards; the German regimental transport was one of the leading formations when the fighting started, hurrying forward to ensure that there was a hot meal for the exhausted infantry, when they reached their destination.
The Grenadier Guard’s history states that a 15th Hussar rode into Landrecies at 4pm, with information that German troops were approaching. The 4th Guards Brigade turned out, and took up positions throughout the town, but stood down when no attack materialised.
In Maroilles, which was occupied by the British 6th Brigade, at around 5.30pm, there were rumours among the French civilian population that German troops were in the vicinity. The rumours were discounted, to the extent that the local mayor refused permission to the troop leader of the 15th Hussars, to destroy a house near to the bridge that obstructed the hussars’ field of fire.
In Landrecies, the information from the French civilians was more specific: the Germans were advancing on the town from the North West.
The rumours of the German approach caused the battalions of the 4th (Guards) Brigade to adopt defensive positions around Landrecies: 3rd Coldstream at the northern end of the town, 2nd Grenadiers on the western side, 2nd Coldstream on the eastern and southern edges of the town, and 1st Irish Guards fortifying the centre.
Sketch map of Landrecies, showing the positions of battalions of the
4th (Guards) Brigade in the evening of 25th August 1914.
Number 2 Company of 3rd Coldstream Guards, commanded by Captain Heywood, was in position at the northern end of the town, where the road to the North West forked into two routes, both leading around the southern end of the Forest of Mormal. The battalion machine gun section deployed at the forks, with one gun aimed down each road.
2nd Grenadiers were posted with Number 2 and 3 Companies, under Major Lord Bernard Lennox, at the railway level-crossing, deployed to either side of the road. Number 1 Company, under Major Hamilton, occupied positions on the left of these companies. Number 4 Company, under Captain Colston, held the bridge over the Sambre River. The battalion was directed to barricade the main street leading north, which they did using the battalion’s tool carts, leaving them immobile and thereby depriving the battalion of the tools for the rest of the campaign. Houses along the road were occupied and put in a state of defence.
Coldstream Guard Bank Picket before the Great War: picture by Harry Payne
During the afternoon, Number 2 Company of 3rd Coldstream Guards engaged German mounted patrols and drove them off, thus confirming the French reports.
One German Uhlan patrol was reported as penetrating, unopposed, into the centre of Landrecies (in fact they were Hussars: but the British tended to describe all German cavalry as ‘Uhlans’). These various attacks, and the Uhlan incursion, made the point forcibly to the brigade, that they could not assume, as they had until then, that there were other British infantry brigades between them and the Germans; the assumption being that the Germans would pursue the I Corps down the east side of the Forest of Mormal, rather than marching diagonally north west to south east through the forest, or around it to the south.
At 7pm, Heywood’s Number 2 Company of 3rd Coldstream was relieved by Captain Monck’s Number 3 Company. Monck received reports that French troops were expected through his position. In due course, a body of troops approached in the dusk, singing in French. Monck shouted a challenge and was answered in French. A flashlight was shined on the approaching troops. The leading files seemed to be in French uniforms, but they were followed by German troops (this seems likely to have been a misidentification in the dark, perhaps arising because the German troops in question were wearing forage hats and not helmets). Before the Coldstreamers could open fire, the Germans rushed the forward piquet, bayoneted the gunner at the machine gun, and dragged his gun away. Monck was knocked over in the rush. The piquet opened fire and the machine gun was recovered, the Germans falling back in the face of the British retaliation.
Landrecies: The Coldstream and Grenadier Guards hold the high street in Lancrecies during the surprise German attack on 4th Guards Brigade on 25th August 1914
With this attack, the brigade resumed the defensive positions prepared earlier in the evening.
During the night, the Germans launched repeated attacks down the two roads from the North West, all of which were held and driven back by 3rd Coldstream. The position of a farm building at the right hand end of the British line enabled the Germans to enfilade the Coldstream with a machine gun. The Germans were supported by a field gun, firing up the road. This gunfire set a haystack near the Coldstream line on fire. The sudden blaze illuminated the British troops, and made them easy targets. Private 5854 G. H.
Wyatt rushed forward and put out the blaze, under fire from the Germans, who were within 25 yards. Again the stack was ignited, and again Wyatt put the flames out.
One of the German attacks, infiltrating round the left flank of 3rd Coldstream, reached as far as the railway station, where it was repelled by the Grenadiers of Number 2 Company, commanded by Major Lord Bernard Lennox.
The Grenadiers machine gun section, commanded by Lieutenant Cecil, moved forward and provided additional support to the 3rd Coldstream, who were suffering from the fire of the single German field gun, directed down the street.
The 3rd Coldstream Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Fielding, brought up a howitzer from the supporting RFA battery. The howitzer was manhandled up to the level-crossing and opened fire on the German gun. The third round put the German gun out of action.
Close hand to hand fighting in Landrecies between 3rd Coldstream Guards
and German Infantry on 25th August 1914.
German attacks had also fallen on the east of the town. 1st Irish Guards launched a counter-attack in that area, at around 3am. The German attacks on the town lost their momentum and finally ceased in the early hours of 26th August 1914.
3rd Coldstream fell back into the town, their positions being taken over by 1st Irish Guards.
At dawn, the 4th (Guards) Brigade marched out of Landrecies to the south, heading for Étreux, unimpeded by the Germans. Instead of much needed rest, the brigade had spent the night fighting.
Many of the soldiers had left their kit in billets and were unable to retrieve it in the hurried withdrawal. During the next day the soldiers fell asleep, whenever there was a pause in the march, and could only be roused with difficulty.
As the brigade left Landrecies, the brigade’s field ambulance, Number 4, was ordered into the town to bring out the wounded left behind from the battle.
B and C sections of the ambulance moved back into Landrecies, passing the battalions as they marched south. The Germans occupied the town, while the British RAMC troops were still collecting the wounded, and the British medical staff and wounded were taken prisoner (10 medical officers up to the rank of colonel were captured). Only A section of the divisional ambulance escaped capture.
Casualties:
Most of the British casualties were suffered by 3rd Coldstream Guards, which lost 2 officers, Lieutenants Viscount Hawarden and Lieutenant Windsor-Clive, and 12 soldiers killed, and 3 officers, Captain Whitbread and Lieutenants Keppel and Rowley, and 105 soldiers wounded, with 11 soldiers missing, presumed killed or captured (Lieutenant Keppel was captured by the Germans). 2nd Grenadier Guards lost 1 officer killed, Lieutenant Vereker, and 6 soldiers wounded. Overall British casualties were given as 200, the balance being from the 2nd Coldstream, 1st Irish Guards and other units.
GHQ BEF estimated German casualties at between 700 and 1,000 men.
In fact the Germans lost 4 officers and 48 soldiers killed, 4 officers and 69 soldiers wounded, with 2 soldiers missing: a total of 127 casualties.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Monday, August 25, 2014
Saturday, August 23, 2014
Thursday, August 21, 2014
Charles Kenneth Scott Moncrieff
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Edmund Burke
It is in his attack on the abstract and individualistic doctrine of the “rights of man” that Burke develops most fully this philosophy of society, and breaks most decisively with the mechanical and atomic political theory which, inherited from Locke, had dominated the thought of the eighteenth century. Over against the view of the state as the product of a “contract” among individuals, whose “rights” exist prior to that contract, and constitute the standard by which at every stage the just claim of society on the individual is to be tested, he develops the conception of the individual as himself the product of society, born to an inheritance of rights (which are “all the advantages” for which civil society is made) and of reciprocal duties, and, in the last resort, owing these concrete rights (actual rights which fall short in perfection of those ideal rights “whose abstract perfection is their practical defect”) to convention and prescription. Society originates not in a free contract but in necessity, and the shaping factor in its institutions has not been the consideration of any code of abstract pre-existent rights (“the inherent rights of the people”) but “convenience.” And, of these conveniences or rights, two are supreme, government and prescription, the existence of “a power out of themselves by which the will of individuals may be controlled,” and the recognition of the sacred character of prescription. In whatever way a particular society may have originated—conquest, usurpation, revolution (“there is a sacred veil to be drawn over the beginnings of all government”)—in process of time, its institutions and rights come to rest upon prescription. In any ancient community such as that of France or Britain, every constituent factor, including what we choose to call the people, is the product of convention. The privileges of every order, the rights of every individual, rest upon prescription embodied in law or established by usage. This is the “compact or agreement which gives its corporate form and capacity to a state,” and, if it is once broken, the people are
a number of vague, loose individuals and nothing more. Alas! they little know how many a weary step is to be taken before they can form themselves into a mass which has a true politic personality.
There is, therefore, no right of revolution, or rebellion at will. The “civil, social man” never may rebel except when he must rebel. Revolution is always the annulment of some rights. It will be judged in the last resort by the degree in which it preserves as well as destroys, and by what it substitutes for what it takes away. At its best, revolution is “the extreme medicine of the constitution,” and Burke’s quarrel with the Assembly is that they have made it “its daily bread”; that, when the whole constitution of France was in their hands to preserve and to reform, they elected only to destroy.
Burke’s denunciation of the spirit or temper of the revolution follows as naturally from his philosophy of the state as that from the doctrine of the revolutionists. “The rights of man” was a religion, a fanaticism expelling every other sentiment, and Burke meets it with a philosophy which is also a religion, no mere theory of the state but a passionate conviction. He and the revolutionists were at one in holding that there is a law, a principle superior to positive law, by which positive law must be tested. Had he not declared that there were positive rights which, in their exercise, were “the most odious of all wrongs, and the most vexatious of all injustice”? But, whereas they sought this law in abstract rights prior to, and independent of, the state, for Burke, the essential condition of every “right” is the state itself. There can be no right which is incompatible with the very existence of the state. Justice is not to be sought in or by the destruction of that which has given us the idea of justice, has made us the moral beings we are, for it is the privilege of “that wonderful structure Man” “to be in a great degree the creature of his own making,” and “He who gave our nature to be perfected by our virtue willed also the necessary means of its perfection; He willed therefore the state.”
To Burke, thus encountering the philosophy and fanaticism of the French revolution with a deeper philosophy and an equal zeal, war with France was a crusade; and he pressed for it passionately before Pitt’s hand was forced by the invasion of Holland. The rest of Burke’s life was mainly devoted to the crusade against Jacobinism at home and abroad, and it is well to understand what he understood by the term. It is not republicanism, nor even democracy, though it is, he seems to think, that to which a pure democracy inevitably tends. Burke did not believe that this country was at war with the French people, for there was no French public. “The country is composed but of two descriptions; audacious tyrants and trembling slaves.” By Jacobinism, he understood the tyranny of unprincipled and irresponsible ability or talent - talent divorced from religious awe and all regard for individual liberty and property, supporting itself by appealing to the passions and ignorance of the poor. This was the character of the government of France as one set of rulers succeeded another in what he calls “the tontine of infamy,” and the war which it waged was a war of conquest essential to its own existence. Peace with such a power could only be made on the same conditions as it was to be made with the Saracens in the full tide of conquest. This is the burden of the impassioned and lurid Letters on a Regicide Peace (1797), which, like the denunciations of Warren Hastings, tend to weary us, by the reiteration of shrill vituperation, the want of coolness and balance of judgment. Burke was, in himself, “the counter-revolution,” and, as in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, excess begat excess.
This is not the place for a full discussion of Burke’s treatment of the French revolution. He died before any final issue was even in sight. It might be urged, with some justice, that he was so moved by the furious symptoms of the disease that he never thoroughly gauged its deeper sources or foresaw the course it must ultimately run, clearly as he did foresee its immediate issues. It might be contended that, fleeing from one abstraction, he drew near to another, and consecrated prescription, inherited right, when judged and condemned by that expediency which is the sanction of prescription. In a history of literature, it is more interesting to note that he had not enough faith in his own principles; for the deficiency reveals the writer’s temperament. Believing, as he did, that society and the particular form which society has taken is of divine origin, that in the history of a nation was revealed the working of providence shaping the moral and spiritual being of those who composed it, he is singularly fearful of the issue. Was the British constitution which the political wisdom of generations had shaped so wanting in elasticity that it could endure no change, adapt itself to no new conditions? Could the folly of the Assembly, the madness of the Terror, the cynical corruption of the Directory undo, in a few years, the work of centuries and permanently alter the character of the French people? The France which emerged from the revolution was, in all essential respects, De Tocqueville has argued, the France of the ancien régime. What disappeared was already dead. In the Code Napoléon, which embodied the legal outcome of the revolution, law became “the expression of settled national character, not of every passionate and casual mood.”
a number of vague, loose individuals and nothing more. Alas! they little know how many a weary step is to be taken before they can form themselves into a mass which has a true politic personality.
There is, therefore, no right of revolution, or rebellion at will. The “civil, social man” never may rebel except when he must rebel. Revolution is always the annulment of some rights. It will be judged in the last resort by the degree in which it preserves as well as destroys, and by what it substitutes for what it takes away. At its best, revolution is “the extreme medicine of the constitution,” and Burke’s quarrel with the Assembly is that they have made it “its daily bread”; that, when the whole constitution of France was in their hands to preserve and to reform, they elected only to destroy.
Burke’s denunciation of the spirit or temper of the revolution follows as naturally from his philosophy of the state as that from the doctrine of the revolutionists. “The rights of man” was a religion, a fanaticism expelling every other sentiment, and Burke meets it with a philosophy which is also a religion, no mere theory of the state but a passionate conviction. He and the revolutionists were at one in holding that there is a law, a principle superior to positive law, by which positive law must be tested. Had he not declared that there were positive rights which, in their exercise, were “the most odious of all wrongs, and the most vexatious of all injustice”? But, whereas they sought this law in abstract rights prior to, and independent of, the state, for Burke, the essential condition of every “right” is the state itself. There can be no right which is incompatible with the very existence of the state. Justice is not to be sought in or by the destruction of that which has given us the idea of justice, has made us the moral beings we are, for it is the privilege of “that wonderful structure Man” “to be in a great degree the creature of his own making,” and “He who gave our nature to be perfected by our virtue willed also the necessary means of its perfection; He willed therefore the state.”
The state is no mere prudential contract for material ends, security of property and life (though these are its primary ends and fundamental conditions); it is the partnership between men from which has sprung science and art and virtue—all human perfection; a partnership which links one generation to another, the living to the dead and the unborn. It is more; “each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal society,” which is the law of God and “holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place.” To the religion of the natural man, Burke thus opposes the religion of the state, of man as civilisation has made him, for “Art is man’s nature.” The established church is the recognition of the sacred character of the state. The prejudices and sentiments which attach us to the community are not to be abolished by the “conquering light of reason,” but cherished as the very substance of the moral reason. It is this thought which underlies Burke’s defence of prejudice. Following, as it does, the highly coloured threnody on the fate of the queen of France and the decay of the sentiments of loyalty and chivalry, Burke has exposed himself to the charge of identifying moral feeling with fleeting and artificial sentiments. But this is only partly just. Burke does not really confound the sentiments which adorn life with those which sustain life, the draperies of the moral life with its flesh and blood. His defence of prejudice against the claims of a fanatical abstract reason is just such a recognition of the nature of moral reason as that which turned Wordsworth from Godwin’s “political justice” to the emotions and prejudices of the peasant.
To Burke, thus encountering the philosophy and fanaticism of the French revolution with a deeper philosophy and an equal zeal, war with France was a crusade; and he pressed for it passionately before Pitt’s hand was forced by the invasion of Holland. The rest of Burke’s life was mainly devoted to the crusade against Jacobinism at home and abroad, and it is well to understand what he understood by the term. It is not republicanism, nor even democracy, though it is, he seems to think, that to which a pure democracy inevitably tends. Burke did not believe that this country was at war with the French people, for there was no French public. “The country is composed but of two descriptions; audacious tyrants and trembling slaves.” By Jacobinism, he understood the tyranny of unprincipled and irresponsible ability or talent - talent divorced from religious awe and all regard for individual liberty and property, supporting itself by appealing to the passions and ignorance of the poor. This was the character of the government of France as one set of rulers succeeded another in what he calls “the tontine of infamy,” and the war which it waged was a war of conquest essential to its own existence. Peace with such a power could only be made on the same conditions as it was to be made with the Saracens in the full tide of conquest. This is the burden of the impassioned and lurid Letters on a Regicide Peace (1797), which, like the denunciations of Warren Hastings, tend to weary us, by the reiteration of shrill vituperation, the want of coolness and balance of judgment. Burke was, in himself, “the counter-revolution,” and, as in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, excess begat excess.
This is not the place for a full discussion of Burke’s treatment of the French revolution. He died before any final issue was even in sight. It might be urged, with some justice, that he was so moved by the furious symptoms of the disease that he never thoroughly gauged its deeper sources or foresaw the course it must ultimately run, clearly as he did foresee its immediate issues. It might be contended that, fleeing from one abstraction, he drew near to another, and consecrated prescription, inherited right, when judged and condemned by that expediency which is the sanction of prescription. In a history of literature, it is more interesting to note that he had not enough faith in his own principles; for the deficiency reveals the writer’s temperament. Believing, as he did, that society and the particular form which society has taken is of divine origin, that in the history of a nation was revealed the working of providence shaping the moral and spiritual being of those who composed it, he is singularly fearful of the issue. Was the British constitution which the political wisdom of generations had shaped so wanting in elasticity that it could endure no change, adapt itself to no new conditions? Could the folly of the Assembly, the madness of the Terror, the cynical corruption of the Directory undo, in a few years, the work of centuries and permanently alter the character of the French people? The France which emerged from the revolution was, in all essential respects, De Tocqueville has argued, the France of the ancien régime. What disappeared was already dead. In the Code Napoléon, which embodied the legal outcome of the revolution, law became “the expression of settled national character, not of every passionate and casual mood.”
Monday, August 18, 2014
Friday, August 15, 2014
Thursday, August 14, 2014
The Irish Guards
http://www.irishguards.org.uk/pages/history/ww1.html
The 1st Battalion was inspected by the Colonel of the Regiment, Field Marshal Lord Roberts, on the 11th August and the next day embarked for France to a concentration area 40 miles south of Mons. It was in this neighbourhood that the first clash of the British Expeditionary Forces (BEF) with the German Army took place, on the morning of the 23rd August 1914. Meanwhile the French, who were on the right of the BEF had to withdraw and to avoid being surrounded by the Germans the BEF had to conform and withdraw also. This Retreat (which is know to the Veterans and the Regiment as the Retirement) is a legendary epic, and the 1st Battalion, therefore, took part in what must be one of the most testing battles of the early part of the Great War. At the beginning of the Retreat the Battalion acted as rearguard to the 2nd Division and sustained its first casualities. Two days later it was again in action at LANDRECIES, but it was on the 1st September, at VILLIERS COTTERET that the Battalion fought it's first serious engagement in which it had over 100 causalities, including the Commanding Officer and Second-in-Command killed and the Adjutant wounded. As the only Major left, Major H.A Herbert-Stepney took command of the Battalion for a hectic 18 days and was later killed on the 6th November 1914 near YPRES. The Retreat lasted until the 5th September 1914 by which time the front had stabilised. It was a long drawn-out rearguard action and a severe test of skill and endurance, entailing withdrawing a distance of nearly 200 miles.
On the 8th September 1914 the Battle of Marne started and this was to be the turning point when the German advance from Mons was halted just east of Paris, and the Allies began the advance northwards towards AINSE where the 1st Battalion crossed by pontoon on the 14th September 1914. In mid-October the BEF was moved to cover the Channel Ports and from the 21st October to the 12th November 1914 the 1st Battalion fought continuously in the first battle of YPRES, losing more than 700 men.
That winter saw the beginning of the long period of trench-warfare, which lasted until the final battles in 1918. Life consisted of mostly monotony, often intense discomfort from the cold and mud, but with an ever-increasing number of casualties from the shelling, machine guns, sniping, mortaring, mining and raids.
From time to time they took part in great set-piece battles such as FESTUBERT, LOOS (this was the first time the Regiment's newly formed 2nd Battalion was in action) THE SOMME, YPRES, CAMBRAI and ARRAS. Each success or failure meant a few hundred yards gained or lost, but the lists of casualties were always large, right up until the last great offensives of the German army in 1918. The collapse of the Russian revolution in 1917 meant that the German eastern front was closed enabling them to redeploy those involved to the western front and against the Allies. On the 21st March sixty-four German Divisions were flung against the point where the British and French Armies met at HAZEBROUCK. The Germans were nearly successful in their attempt to reach the Channel Ports, however the tide was turned during the summer and in August 1918 the Allied Armies took the offensive at places such as HINDENBURG LINE and CANAL NORD. By November 1918 Germany was defeated and the Armistice was signed on the 11th November 1918, by which time the 1st Battalion were at MAUBEUGE, which was only a few miles from MONS, where they had first come under fire in 1914.
The strength of the Regiment on mobilisation in 1914 was 997. During the Great War 293 Officers and 9340 Other Ranks served as Irish Guardsmen of whom 115 Officers and 2235 Other Ranks gave their lives and a further 195 Officers and 5541 Other Ranks were wounded. The numbers don't add up because some of the individuals were wounded more than once and are counted accordingly.
Wednesday, August 13, 2014
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
Monday, August 11, 2014
Friday, August 8, 2014
Dao
When the world knows beauty as beauty, ugliness arises
When it knows good as good, evil arises
Thus being and non-being produce each other
Difficult and easy bring about each other
Long and short reveal each other
High and low support each other
Music and voice harmonize each other
Front and back follow each other
Therefore the sages:
Manage the work of detached actions
Conduct the teaching of no words
They work with myriad things but do not control
They create but do not possess
They act but do not presume
They succeed but do not dwell on success
It is because they do not dwell on success
That it never goes away
Zi-si, Zi-yu, Zi-li, and Zi-lai, these four men, were talking together, when some one said, 'Who can suppose the head to be made from nothing, the spine from life, and the rump-bone from death? Who knows how death and birth, living on and disappearing, compose the one body? I would be friends with him.' The four men looked at one another and laughed, but no one seized with his mind the drift of the questions. All, however, were friends together. Not long after Zi-yu fell ill, and Zi-si went to inquire for him. 'How great,' said (the sufferer), 'is the Creator! That He should have made me the deformed object that I am!' He was a crooked hunchback; his five viscera were squeezed into the upper part of his body; his chin bent over his navel; his shoulder was higher than his crown; on his crown was an ulcer pointing to the sky; his breath came and went in gasps: yet he was easy in his mind, and made no trouble of his condition. He limped to a well, looked at himself in it, and said, 'Alas that the Creator should have made me the deformed object that I am!' Si said, 'Do you dislike your condition?' He replied, 'No, why should I dislike it? If He were to transform my left arm into a cock, I should be watching with it the time of the night; if He were to transform my right arm into a cross-bow, I should then be looking for a Xiao to (bring down and) roast; if He were to transform my rump-bone into a wheel, and my spirit into a horse, I should then be mounting it, and would not change it for another steed. Moreover, when we have got (what we are to do), there is the time (of life) in which to do it; when we lose that (at death), submission (is what is required). When we rest in what the time requires, and manifest that submission, neither joy nor sorrow can find entrance (to the mind). This would be what the ancients called loosing the cord by which (the life) is suspended. But one hung up cannot loose himself;-- he is held fast by his bonds. And that creatures cannot overcome Heaven (the inevitable) is a long-acknowledged fact - why should I hate my condition?'
Before long Zi-lai fell ill, and lay gasping at the point of death, while his wife and children stood around him wailing. Zi-li went to ask for him, and said to them, 'Hush! Get out of the way! Do not disturb him as he is passing through his change.' Then, leaning against the door, he said (to the dying man), 'Great indeed is the Creator! What will He now make you to become? Where will He take you to? Will He make you the liver of a rat, or the arm of an insect? Zi-lai replied, 'Wherever a parent tells a son to go, east, west, south, or north, he simply follows the command. The Yin and Yang are more to a man than his parents are. If they are hastening my death, and I do not quietly submit to them, I shall be obstinate and rebellious. There is the great Mass (of nature);-- I find the support of my body in it; my life is spent in toil on it; my old age seeks ease on it; at death I find rest on it: what has made my life a good will make my death also a good. Here now is a great founder, casting his metal. If the metal were to leap up (in the pot), and say, "I must be made into a (sword like the) Mo-ye," the great founder would be sure to regard it as uncanny. So, again, when a form is being fashioned in the mould of the womb, if it were to say, "I must become a man; I must become a man," the Creator would be sure to regard it as uncanny. When we once understand that heaven and earth are a great melting-pot, and the Creator a great founder, where can we have to go to that shall not be right for us? We are born as from a quiet sleep, and we die to a calm awaking.'
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
Monday, August 4, 2014
Friday, August 1, 2014
The Yingzao Fashi (营造法式; 'Treatise on Architectural Methods') - 1097AD
Li developed a standard 8-rank grading system for different sizes of timber elements. The system was known as the cai-fen system of units and could be universally applied to buildings. Some of the book used material from preexisting architectural writings, but most of the book is documentation of the inherited traditions of craftsmen and architects passed down by word of mouth. Li's book provides a glossary of technical terms that includes mathematical formulae. He incorporated topography in his estimations for buildings on various types of sites. He also estimated the monetary costs of hiring laborers of different skill levels and types of expertise in crafts. His estimates are on the basis of a day's work and include the materials needed, taking into account the season in which the work is done.
Li's work incorporates building rules and regulations, accounting information, standards for materials used in construction, and the classification of various crafts. The 34 chapters in the book specify in detail the units of measurement, the construction of moats and fortifications, and standards for stonework as well as for greater and lesser woodwork. It includes the specifications (and illustrations) for constructing bracketing units with inclined arms and joints for columns and beams, as well as directions for wood carving, turning and drilling, sawing, bamboo work, tiling, wall building, painting and decoration, and the formulas for decorative paints, glazes and various coatings. Included are the mixing proportions for mortars in masonry, brickwork and glazed tile. The book provides hand-drawn illustrations of all the practices and standards. He outlined structural carpentry in great detail, providing standard dimensional measurements for all the components.
Although others were written and compiled beforehand, Li's book is the oldest existing technical manual on Chinese architecture to have survived intact and in its entirety.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
God’s Grandeur
THE WORLD is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; 5
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; 10
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
- Gerard Manley Hopkins
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; 5
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; 10
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
- Gerard Manley Hopkins
Wednesday, July 30, 2014
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Monday, July 28, 2014
Friday, July 25, 2014
((12 + 144 + 20 + (3 * 4^1/2)) / 7) + (5 * 11) = 9^2 + 0
A Dozen, a Gross and a Score,
plus three times the square root of four,
divided by seven,
plus five times eleven,
equals nine squared and not a bit more.
plus three times the square root of four,
divided by seven,
plus five times eleven,
equals nine squared and not a bit more.