It's One Hundred and One Years Since The Pennine Fusiliers Disappeared

Today sees the one hundred and first anniversary of the disappearance of the 13th Battalion of the  Pennine Fusiliers from the Somme. Popular myth has it that they were transported to another world although few today, outside of the community the battalion came from, have heard the story.
    Repeated representations have been made to the government by the Joanne Donovan, M.P. for Broughtonthwaite South, but the official response remains the  same, ‘It is not in the national interest to release documents relating to the Harcourt Event.’ Relatives and descendants of the missing have been waiting over a century to find out what happened to their family members and loved ones that fateful day.
     
- Broughtonwhwaite Mercury, November 1st, 2017
   
   
    The Harcourt Crater is one of the greatest mysteries of World War One, along with the Angel of Mons, the Phantom Archers and the Crucified Canadian. At nearly half a mile wide, it was reputed to be the largest man-made crater on the Western Front. The official explanation was that German mines dug under the British positions in the Harcourt Sector of the Somme were filled with an experimental high explosive before being detonated on the morning of November 1st 1916, resulting in the loss of over nine hundred men of the 13th Battalion of the Pennine Fusiliers.
    Indeed this was the accepted explanation until a decade later, when, in the mid- 1920s, a French farmer ploughing his field, dug up, amongst the unexploded shells, several mud-encrusted old film canisters and a package of documents. Inside the canisters were reels of film which, when developed, revealed silent, grainy footage of British Tommies seemingly on an alien world. The film itself was shown to great acclaim in Picture Houses around the world and it became a minor sensation. Although there were those who claimed they could identify faces in the footage, in the end most felt it to be it a hoax.
    The success of the film nevertheless engendered an appetite for Space Fiction among the general public that persisted for decades; the film’s grainy, iconic images inspiring thousands of lurid pulp sci-fi magazine covers and stories.
    The government of the day… officially declared the whole incident to be a “meticulously planned hoax” and it was consigned to the annals of British folklore. But the myth refused to die. In subsequent years, men occasionally came forward claiming to be survivors of the battalion, returned with fantastic tales to sell, but none were believed. The story inspired the film Space Tommies, released in 1951, featuring Richard Attenborough and Richard Todd and was the basis for a short-lived adventure strip in the boy’s comic Triumph.
    However, it has become apparent from extensive research that the mystery of the Harcourt Crater and the true fate of the men of the lost 13th Battalion constitutes one of the biggest cover-ups in British military history.
   
    No Man’s World is an attempt to set the record straight.
   
    -No Man’s World Book 1: Black Hand Gang, Preface “There was a Front, but damned if we knew where...”



Find out what happened for yourselves:

Amazon UK

Amazon
Rebellion Store

100 Years Ago Today...

The Somme, Harcourt Sector, October 31st, 1916

Night Raid
 
Wearing leather jerkins, their faces blackened with burnt cork, Atkins, Gutsy and Porgy, made their way past scurrying rats to the fire bay, where Hobson and Ketch were waiting for them.
There was a faint fwoosh as an enemy flare went up. It burnt a stark white, casting deep shadows on the wall of the trench that wobbled and tilted as the flare drifted down, until at last they ate up the last of the light and filled the trench again.
‘Gazette’ Otterthwaite and ‘Pot Shot’ Jellicoe were on sentry duty. Even in the dim light it was hard to miss Pot Shot. He was a large man, a shade over six foot, tallest man in the Battalion; the only man who had to crouch when stood on the firestep less his head present a tempting target for German snipers.
Gazette was up on the firestep on sentry duty, Pot Shot was sat on the step beside him, slumped against the side of the bay snoring gently, his rifle clasped to his chest like a loved one. Gazette glanced down at them and kicked Pot Shot awake.
“All right, lads?” he yawned.
That helped ease the queasy feeling in Atkins’ stomach. Gazette was the best sharp shooter in the platoon. If anyone was going to have your back on a Black Hand job you’d want it to be him.
There was a pile of equipment on the firestep by his feet.
“Right,” said Hobson, “take these.” He handed out pistols; Webley revolvers, usually reserved for officers but more practical in situations such as this, that called for stealth. They each had their own bayonet and there were two sets of long-armed wirecutters. Atkins and Porgy got those. Hobson also gave them each a grey military issue blanket that he instructed them to wear across their backs in the manner of a cloak.
“It’ll help disguise your outline against German flares. If a flare goes up, don’t move. You’ll want to throw yourself on the ground but don’t, they’ll spot the movement and you’re a goner. If you freeze you could be tree stump, a shadow or a body on the wire,” he told them. “We’re goin’out to cut the German wire in preparation for tomorrow. So we make sure we do the job properly or it’ll be us and our mates paying the price if we don’t. We also want to take a shufti and make sure Fritz isn’t planning any nasty surprises. Don’t worry, I’ll have you all back in time for the big show.”
“Thanks, Sar’nt. You’re a real pal,” said Gutsy.
“Time for a fag, Sar’nt?” asked Hopkiss, trying to delay the inevitable.
“No. Follow me. Stick to me like glue. No one talks but me. Make sure you stay within an arm’s length of the next fellow. If you get lost make your way back here. And make sure you dozy ha’porths don’t forget the password: Hampstead.”

Atkins checked his bayonet in its sheath. He checked the chambers of the Webley revolver. They were full. The pistol had a loop fastened to the handle, which he slipped round his wrist.
There being no sally port available, Hobson put a ladder up against the revetment and was about to step on the bottom rung when another flare went up. He stopped, waited for the flare to die out, before rolling over the sandbag parapet with practised ease. His arm appeared back over the bags signalling the next man up. Porgy was already on the ladder and climbing. Gutsy stepped on below him and began his climb. It was Atkins’ turn next. As he stepped on the bottom rung, he felt a hand pat this thigh.
“Good luck, mate,” said Gazette. Aktins smiled weakly. He could feel his heart lifting him fractionally from the ladder with every beat as he lay against the rungs. He hadn’t felt a funk like this since that last night with Flora.
“Cheers. I’ll be back for breakfast.”
Another flare.
Above him, Gutsy froze, waiting for the light to die. Atkins looked up. All he could see was Gutsy’s big, round khaki-covered arse eclipsing everything. Blood let one rip and looked down between his legs, grinning.
“Fuck’s sakes, Gutsy!” hissed Gazette. “At least with the yellow cross we get a warning. Where’s me bloody gas helmet?”
A hiss rasped from over the parapet. “Get a move on, you two!”
Puffing, Gutsy rolled over the sandbags with as much grace as a carcass in his old butcher’s shop.
Atkins reached the top of the ladder. The nightscape before him never failed to chill him to the core. No Man’s Land. It was a contradiction in terms. You were never alone in No Man’s Land. During the day it was quiet, with generally nothing but the odd buzz of a sniper’s bullet cutting low over the ground or the crump of a Minniewerfer to disturb it. At night, though, it became a hive of activity; parties out repairing wire, laying new wire, digging saps, running reconnaissance, conducting trench raids. Both sides knew it. It was the most dangerous of times to be out and never dark for long, as flares burst in the air, momentarily illuminating bleak Futurist landscapes that left hellish after-images in the mind’s eye.

He saw Hobson and Porgy about four or five yards ahead, crawling along on their bellies. Gutsy was to his left. Atkins inched forward using his elbows and knees. The mud was cold and slimy and within a minute his entire front, from chin to toes, was soaked. He and Gutsy made their way to where Sergeant Hobson and Porgy were waiting. About twenty yards ahead, they could make out the vague unearthly shapes of their own wire entanglements. Sergeant Hobson indicated a piece of soiled, white tape in the mud that led them to the gap in their own wire.
Now they truly were in No Man’s Land.

- No Man's World Book 1: Black Hand Gang, Chapter 2 "All the Wonders of No Man's Land"

No Man's World only 99p Today!

99 years ago today, the brave men of the 13th Battalion of the Pennine Fusiliers  disappeared from the Western Front. Some say they were simply decimated by the brutal action of the day, but we know better...

To celebrate the glorious exploits of the men of the 13th, and their adventures as depicted  in the No Man's World series, Abaddon have dropped the price of these tales of Interplanetary Tommies to only 99p (or (£2.99 if you fancy the Omnibus, which is also stuffed with extra goodies).

So throw up a salute to the men of the 13th and put your hand in your wallet on this most auspicious of occasions...

No Man’s World is out now!

Black Hand Gang
Buy: UK|US

The Ironclad Prophecy
Buy: UK|US

The Alleyman
Buy: UK|US


No Man’s World Omnibus 
Buy: UK|US

All aboard the Omnibus for No Man's World!

Never mind the Western Front, climb aboard and we'll take you to the Final Front, here on No Man's World.

You've kept the home fires burning and today sees the publication of the collected omnibus edition of No Man's World, from that fine purveyor of pulp fiction, Abaddon Books. Follow the 'Broughtonthwaite Mates' through 800 pulse-pounding petrolpunk pages collecting  Black Hand Gang, The Ironclad Prophecy and The Alleyman together for the first time, along with a whole kitbag of bonus features.

No Man’s World is an unashamed pulp adventure series. It’s trenches and extraterrestrials, bayonets and bug-eyed monsters, as a battalion of WW1 British soldiers and nurses find themselves, and a section of their front line, transported from the Somme in 1916 to an alien world that is hostile in every respect. There, they have to struggle to survive while trying to find a way home. Imagine Charley’s War drawn by Kevin O’Neill.

Abaddon Books Ebook store. Available in ePub and Mobi formats (DRM free) 

Amazon UK

Amazon UK Kindle edition

Amazon.com 

Amazon.com Kindle Edition

Christmas in the Trenches

Stick your head above the parapet, pick up your football and wander into No Man’s World this Christmas.

For today only, the No Man’s World: Black Hand Gang ebook is 98p over at the Rebellion store as part of their Advent calendar event.

Grab a copy, and have a Joyeux Noël!

Communications Trench No.1

With the publication yesterday of The Ironclad Prophecy, the second book in the No Man’s World series, here’s your chance to catch up with all the bumf from HQ in a round-up of recent latrine rumours, reviews, readings, interviews and podcasts.

First up is a wind-up gramophone recording from Abaddon Books’ own dugout, where David Moore debriefs Pat Kelleher on the background to the No Man’s World series.

Next comes a barrage of questions from behind the lines courtesy of Gareth Wilson at The Falcata Times, who followed up with an explosive review.

Graeme Flory over at Graeme’s Fantasy Book review also gave the book a bright Very flare of a review and wanted to know more about the historical inspirations behind the series.

And for those of you who are still wondering about going ‘over the top’ into No Man’s World, Boston Book Bums recently fired off a brilliant review of the first book in the series, Black Hand Gang.

Still not enough for you? Then ‘Stand to’ on the fire step and take a peek over the parapet of Book 2 with David Moore’s trench periscope as Pat Kelleher reads an extract from The Ironclad Prophecy at this year’s Alt.Fiction.

Finally, Cavan Scott wanted to know which book I wished I written. Find out what it is here.

And if you’re curious about the tank featured in the books, check out previous posts here and here and follow PennineFusilier on Twitter.

Over the Top

Along with the Angel of Mons and the Phantom Bowmen, the Harcourt Crater is one of the enduring myths of the First World War when, on the 1st November 1916, some 900 men of the 13th Battalion of the Pennine Fusiliers vanished from the face of the Earth.

Although many claims on the truth have been made, the Harcourt Crater and disappearance of the ‘Broughtonthwaite Mates’ have never been satisfactorily explained and with the deaths in recent years of the last surviving World War One veterans, there is now no one alive who can remember, first hand, the tragedy of All Saint’s Day, 1916.

However the publication of a new book, No Man's World: Black Hand Gang from Abaddon Books, has prompted a resurgence of interest in the ninety-four year old mystery.

Was there any truth to government claims at the time that the crater was the result of experimental explosives? Or was it, as some believe, the work of supernatural forces? Did Nikola Tesla appear before the secretive government Committee of Enquiry into the Harcourt Event and, if so, why?

For those interested in seeking further information about the Harcourt mystery and the true fate of the Broughtonthwaite Mates, your search continues here.