Henry Fitzwilliam's War Read online

  Henry Fitzwilliam’s War

  By

  Don Jacobson

  A Pride & Prejudice Variation

  © 2016, Revised Second Edition ©2018 by Don Jacobson. All rights reserved. No portion of this work may be reproduced by any means electronic or mechanical without the expressed written consent of the holder of this copyright with the exception of brief excerpts for review purposes. Published in the United States of America.

  Cover Photo: A German trench occupied by British Soldiers near the Albert-Bapaume road at Ovillers-la-Boisselle, July 1916 during the Battle of the Somme. The men are from A Company, 11th Battalion, The Cheshire Regiment. This artistic work created by the United Kingdom Government is in the public domain.

  Cover design by Janet Taylor. JT Originals.

  All characters, real or imaginary, are treated as fiction and may have been altered for literary purposes. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental. All errors are the author’s own. He humbly apologizes in advance for any inconvenience or discomfort these may cause.

  Works by Don Jacobson

  The Bennet Wardrobe Stories

  Miss Bennet’s First Christmas

  The Bennet Wardrobe: Origins

  The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary Journey

  Henry Fitzwilliam’s War

  The Exile (Pt. 1): Kitty Bennet and the Belle Époque

  Lizzy Bennet Meets the Countess

  The Exile (Pt. 2): The Countess Visits Longbourn

  The Avenger: Thomas Bennet and a Father’s Lament

  Other Pride and Prejudice Variations

  Lessers and Betters Stories

  Of Fortune’s Reversal

  The Maid and The Footman

  Lessers and Betters

  Table of Contents

  The Bennets of Longbourn Genealogy

  Preface

  Dedication

  Dramatis Personae

  Rules of the Wardrobe

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Reverie

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Other Works by the Author

  End Notes

  The Bennets of Longbourn

  Preface to the Second Edition

  This novella introduces readers to another character in the Bennet Wardrobe Universe. Just as Edward Benton (née Bennet) altered the course of Mary Bennet’s life in The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary Journey once she had begun to discover the gem of a woman that she really was, so too will Henry Fitzwilliam stand tall in the deep, long stream of Kitty Bennet’s existence.

  While Edward’s introduction can naturally occur in the flow of “The Keeper,” Henry’s is more complicated as his life begins in that hyphenated space in the younger Bennet’s timeline—when she is “lost” to the world as she leaped ahead to 1886 from 1811.

  The dictates of Kitty’s story—The Exile: Kitty Bennet and the Belle Époque—have required me to understand how the character of Henry was shaped prior to that late Spring day when the seventeen- year-old innocent stepped out of the Wardrobe at Matlock House in 1886. In other words, if everything in his life had formed him to be the man he was in 1886, I had to sketch those prior events to give the young Viscount dimensions and depths that would provide a plausible back story for his behavior after 1886. The end result was Henry Fitzwilliam’s War.

  An historical note: wealthy young men of the mid-Victorian era were faced with what historians have long asserted to be an identity crisis. Americans born from the early 1850s into the 1860s were too young to have had their lives defined by involvement in the Civil War. British aristocrats and upper middle class men in that same cohort likewise missed the pacification of the Indian subcontinent in the 1850s and 60s. By the time these Anglophonic brethren had reached their majority in the 1880s, they eagerly sought ways to “make their mark.”

  Theodore Roosevelt (along with Henry Cabot Lodge, Henry Adams, and Albert Beveridge, amongst others) was a great proponent that a man proved his worth through conflict and conquest, not just of men, but also of nature (see his sojourn in the Dakotas after his first wife’s tragic death). Thus, as these Americans entered public life in the last two decades of the century, they became advocates of an expansion of American naval power to elevate the United States from second (or even third)-rate status into the forefront of nations. The end result was the Spanish-American War (1898) and the American-Filipino War (1900-1905) along with the acquisition of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines and the Panama Canal Zone.

  For the British, this search for manhood led to a second British Imperialism that lasted from 1884 to 1910. Throughout that period, the British were enthusiastic participants [see Winston Churchill’s “The River War” (1899) and “From London to Ladysmith” (1900)] in the “Scramble for Africa,” nearly coming to blows with the French in 1895 at Fashoda (in the Sudan). The British fought several colonial wars to subjugate native peoples in the border regions around India (engaging in “The Great Game” with the Russians in the Afghan provinces) and across Africa (see the “Zulu Wars”). However, the Boer War (1900-1902) in South Africa was transformative as this was the first time Germany openly sympathized with a British opponent. Thus, the foundations of World War I were established.

  Henry Fitzwilliam was of this generation. He, too, searched for that which would confirm his manhood. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for me, he attained his majority before the British state began to acquire extensive African possessions. That he had the Wardrobe at his disposal meant that he could search for his formative destiny somewhere in the future. But, the Wardrobe, as Lydia, Dowager Countess of Matlock noted, “can have a strange sense of humor.” Let us just say that he had much to learn.

  I hope that will read the sketch of the shaping of a young man’s personality in the spirit in which it was intended.

  Don Jacobson

  Issaquah, WA

  October 2017

  Dedication

  I dedicate this book to the cadre of followers of one of the pathfinders in the world of fiction writing, Miss Jane Austen. These readers, through their interest, have kept alive her enduring studies of the human condition. So it is to those readers—and authors—who have endeavored to keep Austen fresh through countless variations of the Canonical stories, that I offer up this work in the hopes of opening new doors into her universe.

  Lest we forget: my work would be nothing without the greatest heroine in my life, my Lady Pamela, who, impertinent to perfection, keeps me an honest writer seeking to compose my truths.

  Dramatis Personae

  The Object of Our Study

  Viscount Henry Fitzwilliam of Matlock, aka Leftenant Williams

  Faces in Fever Dreams

  Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., scion of the New York City Roosevelts

  Sergeant Major Malcolm Reynolds of the Royal Scots Fusiliers

  Lydia, Dowager Countess of Matlock and Keeper of the Wardrobe

  Lord Edward Darcy, Third Earl of Pemberley

  Voices in Henry’s Darkness

  A Lady of great distinction

  Doctor Campbell

  Monsieur Jacques

  Gibbons’ Rules of The Wardrobe

  Only blood descendants of Christopher Bennet of Longbourn Estate, Meryton, Hertfordshire will be able to utilize the Cabinet to visit the future. No other person will be able to activate the forces channeled by the Wardrobe.

  Time transit will be accomplished from the Wardrobe in the present to the Wardrobe in the future. If the Wardrobe is altered
, damaged or destroyed in the future, travel beyond that point in time will be impossible.

  Each time voyage is a cycle that must be completed. A cycle is one trip to the future accompanied by a return trip to moment of departure. The Bennet cannot use the Wardrobe to jump to one future and then jump to another future beyond.

  Time travel will only be undertaken based upon the expressed desire of the Bennet. However, the Wardrobe will interpret that desire and ascertain what is best for the Bennet, the Bennet family, and the Wardrobe itself.

  Travel forward in time does not stop the progression of time in the Universe. If the Bennet spends a year in the future and uses the Wardrobe to return, the Bennet will have aged one year.

  No travel to any past before the immediate present is possible.

  No male Bennet will be able to sire offspring in the future having travelled to that future through the Wardrobe in order to prevent improper relations. No female Bennet can increase in the future and then return to the past while awaiting confinement. Bennet children born in the future will not be able to return to the past with their parent.

  Other rules may be discovered that will modify these strictures

  Destiny once composed cannot be undone (C. Bennet, 1697)

  9. Under no circumstances should an increasing woman, be she a Bennet or carrying a Bennet babe, touch the wardrobe lest both be transported because of the closeness of their bond. (S. Bennet, 1760)

  10. All traveling Bennets must immediately contact the head offices of the Bennet Family Trust in London using whatever means fitting for the epoch. (T. Bennet, 1812)

  11. Upon arrival, traveling Bennets must ascertain the correct date and location prior to leaving the vicinity of the Wardrobe. Under no circumstances shall the Bennet leave the vicinity of the Wardrobe until personal security is established lest the Wardrobe be compromised. (M. Benton, E. Benton, 1816)

  12. The Wardrobe may determine that two Bennets, one already having traveled forward but not yet having completed the cycle, may both move forward if they are in skin-to-skin contact when the cabinet is activated by the untraveled Bennet. (M. Benton, 2009)

  Chapter One

  October 3, 1915 On the Road from Loos to Deauville KM 214 of 336

  The inside of the tarp-covered ambulance was stifling in the midday heat as the truck lurched its way along the worn and rutted roadway. The oppressive darkness inside meant little to the occupants stretched out on two tiers of wooden bunks. Three of the four were drugged to the gills with merciful doses of morphine. The last, a leftenant of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, was strapped to his stretcher on the upper, even hotter, level, his bandaged eyes toward the canopy and a camphor soaked mask covering his nose and mouth. He, though, was awake and had been so for every bone-jarring moment of the journey from the hospital some ten kilometers behind the lines at Loos over fourteen hours ago.

  Henry Williams mused that if the road had been previously paved, the benefits had long since been scrubbed away by traffic that had not let up for fifteen minutes since the war began over a year ago. Sweat tickled down his exposed cheeks, the only part of his face not covered by gauze and muslin wrappings. His hair was drenched as well, and, in its filthy state, clung to his scalp itching irritatingly. Relief was impossible, as the geniuses at the last rest station had strapped his arms firmly beneath the ragged blanket draped over his six-foot frame.

  His prickly head and scratchy beard were only the beginning of his discomfort. He was still wearing the same grimy, smelly battle dress and small clothes that he had pulled on over a week ago as his company (3rd C/2 BN RSF) waited orders to go over the top for the big push the brass and fellows with the red tabs had promised would snap the Huns’ line and let the army run loose all the way to the Rhine.

  Oh yes…the breakthrough that would end the stalemate. No more scuttling around the trenches keeping your head low to avoid a German 7.92 mm kill shot. We would be able to range free. If only the cavalry still existed! Just three or four miles of a hard go and then all would be over. Home by Christmas 1915! Wasted wishes those were.

  But, that was, Henry guessed, over a week ago. So much had happened since then.

  

  While he had been cooling his heels at battalion headquarters running an errand for his captain a few days before the planned H-Hour, Henry had overheard some of his superiors talking about the Army’s secret weapon. They planned to answer the German’s use of poison gas at Ypres in April with a gas attack of their own. The Battle of Loos would be Britain’s first such effort…and the gas would be the same as that used by the Hun—chlorine, the green mist that choked the life out of soldiers unlucky enough to get a lung-full.

  Henry recalled the last few hours leading up to the assault. Artillery, while less than what they had been used to, pounded the German side of No-Man’s Land, giant shells sending up gouts of French farmland. After sunset, the blasts offered surreal splashes of high explosive red and orange peppered with the searing glare of white phosphorus. Then all fell silent. For two or three hours.

  In the darkling hours of early morning as the men waited silently in their files, Sergeant Reynolds and Henry had stood on the penultimate step of the parapet doing that which soldiers always did…waiting. Word had come down from the command post that the gas had been released from giant tanks all along the point of attack. The prevailing winds—west to east—on the front meant that the gas would drift over the wire and settle into the German positions. The Jerries would get a whiff, and then would turn tail and flee from a hideous death. At least that was the plan.

  What French’s[i] staff ignored was that not all of the canisters had been emptied or even broached. Typical British “efficiency” had delivered the wrong valve keys to several gas positions.[ii] Henry recalled that the tanks near the 2nd Battalion had sat silent, their hulking shapes surrounded by idle men. It did not seem particularly important at the moment…but, oh, how that would change.

  And, nobody took into account that the wind might shift.

  At H-Hour, the whistles began to blow up and down the trench works. Setting the example, young officers like Henry vaulted over the sandbags and screamed at their men to advance. Many were instantly cut down as the Germans opened fire. Sergeant Major Reynolds started kicking men up over the edge into the hiss and snap of copper jacketed German rounds. Some folded without a sound only a few steps into their attack as their numbers came up in the eternal lottery. Parachute flares fired from both lines drifted slowly, casting the man-made moonscape into an eerie white relief.

  Henry moved forward about ten yards into No-Man’s land and hunkered down behind the remains of a farmer’s wagon resting next to traces of an old road that meandered between the lines. Shards of grey wood flew off the few remaining sideboards as German gunners focused their attention on the lone British soldier foolish enough to approach fully manned positions.

  Turning around to face his trench, Henry could see small groups of men crawling toward him. The trickle of olive drab got wider as Reynolds chivvied more men into the attack. Finally all were clear and Reynolds joined Henry by the cart.

  “Well, Leftenant, you have done more ‘en most. You survived the first five minutes. Now comes the hot work,” Reynolds said.

  “So true Sergeant. Seems like about two-thirds of the company got clear. Where is Captain MacPhearson?” Henry asked, looking around in the dimming light of a dying flare.

  “MacPhearson bought the farm the moment he cleared the sandbags. I think Mr. Annesley is now the senior leftenant. He’s in charge, sir,” the subaltern said.

  As if on cue, Annesley screamed out the order to charge once again from a shielded position about 25 yards to their right.

  Henry made to rise, but the older soldier gently pushed him down.

  “Wait a moment…let the others draw their fire. We’ll get our boys going as soon as Jerry’s attention is focused down the line.”

  The Germans quickly changed their aim, Mausers and m
achine guns winnowing the ranks of the battalion. Then as if a giant had stomped his foot, the earth beneath Williams and Reynolds shivered. Giant shells began screaming in on the British trenches behind the exposed men.

  Henry glanced at Reynolds. “Nothing for it now. Time to move!” They scrambled to their feet, and the remaining Fusiliers began to weave their way from shell hole to shell hole.

  Acrid smoke hung low over the battlefield as the pre-dawn wind calmed. Thousands of Tommies moved through the mist like wraiths commanded by an ancient king seeking to visit horror on the enemy who had been tormenting them for so long. But, the gods were cruel that morning. The becalmed wind rose, but now coursing from the German side of the field. The zephyr cleared cordite clouds and replaced them with fingers of something far worse—the chlorine that had been successfully released by the Brits.

  Reynolds spotted the greenish cloud hugging the ground. “Gas,” he screamed, “Mask up!” Of course, most men had left the bulky and heavy apparatus behind in their dugouts when it became clear that the Germans would not try to poison them. Their impending doom was made not in Cologne but rather Colchester.

  With no protection from the poison coming from their left and facing a withering fire from the Germans in front of them, most British soldiers did the only sensible thing—they turned tail and dove back into their own trench works. There they died in the fetid clouds that had already settled into those formerly safe havens. Unseen by the RSF were those previously untapped British gas tanks being blown to pieces by the German barrage, releasing their fearsome cargo into the positions directly in front of their remains.

  Henry screamed at a few soldiers milling about, “Stay out of the shell holes. The gas is heavier than air. Run right toward the right flank to get ahead of it. When you get to a position that’s away from the gas, drop into a trench and find a gas mask.” He then followed Reynolds’s example and yanked on his own mask.