Big Bang Fic: Rat and Sword Go To War, Introduction
Title: Rat and Sword Go To War
Author: rthstewart
Rating: T, for a soldier's salty language
Pairings/characters: Peter Pevensie, Susan Pevensie
Disclaimer: This work of historical fiction is offered respectfully and with deep admiration for the men and women herein depicted as well as C.S. Lewis and the other content owners of the Chronicles of Narnia and its related properties. Any original content in this derivative fiction is in the public domain and may be used freely and without notice to me or attribution.
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: All of The Chronicles of Narnia.
Summary: The High King and the Gentle Queen go to war, again.
Introduction
Rat and Sword Go To War
Part of The Stone Gryphon story cycle
By Rthstewart
With gratitude to autumnia and amine_eyes for the beta assistance. Thanks to Clio and lotl101 for the assistance with WC Tebbitt’s poetry.
ooOOoo
Table of Contents
Introduction, Glossary, Cast Of Characters, Maps, Big Bang Prompts
Chapter 1, What has gone before, D-Day minus 16 months
Chapter 2, Training Days, D-Day Minus 1 year
Chapter 3, Agent provocateur, D-Day Minus 7 Months To D-Day Minus 6 Months Part 1 Part 2
Chapter 4, Building Bridges, D-Day Minus 2 Months
Chapter 5, To War, D-Day Minus One Month To D-Day Minus One Day
Chapter 6, The Longest Day, D-Day Part 1 Part 2
Notes
ooOOoo
Introduction
While technically a standalone, this assumes some knowledge of The Stone Gryphon story arc. What has gone before is summarized briefly below.
In the early spring 1943, Peter Pevensie leaves school and enters and completes basic training. Major al-Masri - Asim bin Kalil - a British Army intelligence officer and self-appointed retainer and guide to the Pevensies, intends to help Peter land in D Company of the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.
In the meantime, Susan builds upon her successes in spycraft told in The Queen Susan in Tashbaan. In the summer of 1942, operating under the alias of Mrs. Susan Caspian, Susan begins working for Colonel George Walker-Smythe in the office of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in the British Embassy in Washington. Susan “babysits” an SOE agent, Wing Commander Reginald Tebbitt, and together they create fake documents, plant news stories, steal secrets, seduce politicians, and thwart a Soviet spy, all to further the British war effort. Upon returning to England, Susan, hopes that with her mentors’ assistance, her fake identities, and her mother’s consent, she will be permitted to leave school in early 1943 and re-join the SOE as an active agent.
On a serious note, those familiar with TQSiT know that the story took a turn toward historical fiction with its heavy reliance about the real people and real events described in J. Conant’s The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington. In TQSiT, however, whenever the story veered too close to the real people, I switched to the Narnian allegorical conceit, thus avoiding explicitly placing Susan among real people and their lives.
I cannot do that here.
The people, places, and events here are real with the following exceptions: Susan’s three mentors in England, al-Masri, Walker-Smythe, and Tebbitt who were all previously introduced in TSG; and Leutnant Becker and Feldwebel Müeller. With these exceptions, everyone else in the story really lived, they really did these heroic things, they really died and books, websites, and plaques in famous places bear their names and tell their stories. It is with great caution and trepidation that I insert fictional characters into this historical and very well-known account. My intent is to do so carefully, with respect, and with the knowledge that this is not the first time these people and their contributions to World War II have been fictionalized.
Peter and Susan will not be usurping what other, real heroes did.
Peter’s story relies heavily upon Stephen Ambrose’s Pegasus Bridge: June 6, 1944 and Will Fowler’s Pegasus Bridge. The intelligence operation that supported Operation Deadstick is also described in these sources. Not surprisingly, I’ve engaged in more speculation in Susan’s story. Susan’s story comes from several sources documenting the exploits of the women the SOE inserted into occupied countries. Sources include Rita Kramer’s Flames in the Field and Marcus Binney’s The Women Who Lived For Danger.
Given the enormous scope of these stories, I’ve had to leave out many parts and details. This is, in the end, historical fiction, not history and I tell a narrow piece of it, primarily from the points of view of characters who do not know as much as the reader does of the bigger picture.
Last, this is teen rated, most especially for a soldier’s salty language. When the Generals are crude (and search the text of George Patton’s D-Day speech for that), one can expect the same of the common soldier. Further, Susan moves as an adult woman through an adult world and she has some unresolved business with Wing Commander Reginald Tebbitt.
Glossary of terms
Weapons
Enfield .303 - old style rifle of the British army; fitted with a telescopic sight, it is a sniper’s weapon. Private Wally Parr was in charge of the snipers of D Company.
Sten - a very unreliable 9 mm submachine gun; 7 pounds, 30 inches in length, single shot or automatic, and holds 32 rounds of ammunition. Cheap to make, temperamental, and the weapon most used in the Infantry and the SOE.
Bren - the light machine gun of a platoon. One soldier is the gunner and everyone else carries the ammunition. It weighs about 32 pounds and is often mounted on a tripod. It has a range of about 500 yards and fires 120 rounds per minute. I have seen reports that both Private Gray and Corporal Bailey were the Bren gunmen in Lieutenant Brotheridge’s platoon.
Piat - projector infantry anti-tank rocket. Fired from the shoulder, it carried a 3 pound bomb that should (but often did not) explode on impact with a tank. A failed shot left the tank able to fire back.
Little Joe and Big Joe - crossbows used in training SOE agents
808s - Nobel’s Explosive No. 808, a simple plastic explosive, used by the SOE.
Gammon bomb - a type of hand grenade that exploded on impact
Other terms
LZ- Landing Zone - where troops land on D-Day (any D-Day)
Para- paratroopers - men of the Airborne divisions of the Army who jump out of planes into (usually) enemy territory by parachute; in the days before helicopters, paras were sent into occupied territory by glider.
DZ - Drop Zone - Where paras land
D-Day - originally meant the launch day for any military operation; now referred to most typically as the day of the Normandy invasion, June 6, 1944
OCTU - Officer Cadet Training Unit - where officer candidates are trained
Operation Overlord - the term for the Allies’ landings at Normandy to begin the retaking of Europe from the Nazi Germany
Glider Corps - In the days before helicopters, gliders were the way to land a group of troops, supplies, and vehicles in a particular DZ without them being scattered all over the place. Engineless gliders are towed into position by bombers, released, and crash landed in positions where the prangers then engaged the enemy and begin the operation.
Prang, pranging, prangers - the paras who ride in gliders are prangers and they prang out of gliders to begin their action.
NAAFI: The Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes (NAAFI) run the canteen, shops, laundry and recreational services for NCOs/ROs on British bases. Commissioned officers aren’t supposed to go to NAAFI facilities.
Batman - the lower ranked man who helps the officer of his unit - Sam to Frodo, Bunter to Lord Peter, Jeeves to Bertie Wooster.
NCO/RO - Non commissioned officer or rank officer or other rank, a soldier who is not an officer; an “enlisted” man.
Subaltern- subordinate or junior officer, Lieutenants Brotheridge, Sweeney, Wood, Smith, Fox, and Hooper are Major Howard’s subalterns in D Company
2IC or SIC - Second in Command; Captain Priday is Major Howard’s 2IC.
Oxs & Bucks - Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry - a regiment of the British Army
Sappers - Combat-trained engineers of the British Army
Platoon - a fighting unit of 25-30 soldiers
Company - several platoons make up a company
Battalion - several companies make up a Battalion - D Company is part of the 2nd Battalion of the Ox & Bucks
Brigade - several battalions make up a brigade - the Ox & Bucks are part of a larger brigade
Division - several brigades make up a Division. The 2nd Battalion of the Ox & Bucks are part of a brigade that make up the 6th Airborne Division. The British did not have a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th Airborne Division. They created a new one in addition to the 1st Airborne in 1943 and called it the 6th to confuse the Germans.
Milice - a civilian-based paramilitary group in France intended to fight the Resistance, much feared.
Abwehr - German military intelligence operation
RTU (Return to unit) - sent down, demoted, tossed out of whatever choice position you have. In this context the threat that anyone acting up in D Company would be tossed out of the Glider Corps and returned to the regular Ox & Bucks infantry
Special Operations Executive (SOE) - The secret operation created by Winston Churchill and charged with aiding in winning the war by unconventional means. The wiki entry states: it was sometimes referred to as “the Baker Street Irregulars” after the location of its London headquarters. It was also known as “Churchill’s Secret Army” or “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” Section F is the part responsible for inserting secret agents into Nazi-occupied France.
CO - Commanding Officer or Conducting Officer (if in SOE)
Bod - SOE slang for student/agent in training
Organisation Civil et Militaire - OCM - according to the wiki entry, one of the movements of the French Resistance in the zone occupée, the northern German-occupied region of France.
w/t - wireless telegraph - operating short wave radios for sending and receiving coded messages via Morse Code. An important part of training in the SOE.
ooOOoo
Glossary of Characters
Tommy or Tommy Atkins: Refers to common British soldier
Jerry: Used by Tommies to refer to Germans, also spelled Gerry
Fictional Characters
Colonel George Walker-Smythe - SOE operative based in the British Embassy, Washington D.C., and Susan’s mentor and teacher in The Queen Susan in Tashbaan
Wing Commander Reginald Tebbitt - an SOE agent in Washington, D.C. after he was badly injured when his plane was shot down over North Africa. Susan was his handler and babysitter in the summer of 1942.
Asim bin Kalil a/k/a Major Abdullah ibn Abbas ibn Muhammad al-Masri - Muslim mystic, Egyptian, intelligence officer in the British Army. Also friend of the Pevensies and self-appointed guide as described who dreams of Narnia.
Leutnant Becker - Alsatian, 21st Panzer Division
Feldwebel Müeller - Sergeant, 21st Panzer Division
Real People
General “Windy” Gale - CO of the 6th Airborne
Major John Howard -- CO of D Company, Oxs & Bucks
Captain Brian Priday - Major Howard’s 2IC
Lieutenant Den Brotheridge (Danny) - CO of Platoon 25, later Platoon Able, Glider 1, Company D, Ox & Bucks
Private Wally Parr - Sniper in Lieutenant Brotheridge’s platoon, D Company, Ox & Bucks
Private Billy Gray - solider in Lieutenant Brotheridge’s platoon, D Company, Ox & Bucks; Brotheridge’s batman
Private Charlie Gardner - solider in Lieutenant Brotheridge’s platoon, D Company, Ox & Bucks
Corporal Jack Bailey - soldier in Lieutenant Brotheridge’s platoon, D Company, Ox & Bucks
Vera Atkins - Responsible for F Section of the SOE and the placement of agents in France.
Selwyn Jenson - fiction writer, talent spotter for the SOE
Georges and Thérèse Gondrée- owners of the Gondree Café in Bénouville, France
Lea Vion - Administrator of the Château de Bénouville, a maternity hospital (also spelled “Leah”)
Monsieur Claudius Desvignes - Madame Vion’s Accountant
Monsieur Albert Lebourgeois - Madame Vion’s ambulance driver
Leutnant Hans Hoeller, artillery officer 192 Panzer Grenadier Regiment, 21st Panzer Division
ooOOoo
Maps
An understanding of the basic geography will help immensely in the military strategy of the story
Map of Bénouville Bridges
Normandy beaches, landing zones and sectors
Allied Invasion Force map
Normandy Beaches
Narnia Big Bang Prompts
cofax7: “There is a period when it is clear that you have gone wrong but you continue. Sometimes there is a luxurious amount of time before anything bad happens.”
“Killing is unavoidable but is nothing to be proud of.”
~Jenny Holzer
harmony_lover: In the past, people were born royal. Nowadays, royalty comes from what you do.
~Gianni Versace
unsuitenedt: “We never really are the adults we pretend to be. We wear the mask and perhaps the clothes and posture of grown-ups, but inside our skin we are never as wise or as sure or as strong as we want to convince ourselves and others we are. We may fool all the rest of the people all of the time, but we never fool our parents.” ~ Frank Pittman
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3 Part 1 Part 2
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6 Part 1 Part 2
Author: rthstewart
Rating: T, for a soldier's salty language
Pairings/characters: Peter Pevensie, Susan Pevensie
Disclaimer: This work of historical fiction is offered respectfully and with deep admiration for the men and women herein depicted as well as C.S. Lewis and the other content owners of the Chronicles of Narnia and its related properties. Any original content in this derivative fiction is in the public domain and may be used freely and without notice to me or attribution.
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: All of The Chronicles of Narnia.
Summary: The High King and the Gentle Queen go to war, again.
Introduction
Rat and Sword Go To War
Part of The Stone Gryphon story cycle
By Rthstewart
With gratitude to autumnia and amine_eyes for the beta assistance. Thanks to Clio and lotl101 for the assistance with WC Tebbitt’s poetry.
ooOOoo
Table of Contents
Introduction, Glossary, Cast Of Characters, Maps, Big Bang Prompts
Chapter 1, What has gone before, D-Day minus 16 months
Chapter 2, Training Days, D-Day Minus 1 year
Chapter 3, Agent provocateur, D-Day Minus 7 Months To D-Day Minus 6 Months Part 1 Part 2
Chapter 4, Building Bridges, D-Day Minus 2 Months
Chapter 5, To War, D-Day Minus One Month To D-Day Minus One Day
Chapter 6, The Longest Day, D-Day Part 1 Part 2
Notes
ooOOoo
Introduction
While technically a standalone, this assumes some knowledge of The Stone Gryphon story arc. What has gone before is summarized briefly below.
In the early spring 1943, Peter Pevensie leaves school and enters and completes basic training. Major al-Masri - Asim bin Kalil - a British Army intelligence officer and self-appointed retainer and guide to the Pevensies, intends to help Peter land in D Company of the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.
In the meantime, Susan builds upon her successes in spycraft told in The Queen Susan in Tashbaan. In the summer of 1942, operating under the alias of Mrs. Susan Caspian, Susan begins working for Colonel George Walker-Smythe in the office of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in the British Embassy in Washington. Susan “babysits” an SOE agent, Wing Commander Reginald Tebbitt, and together they create fake documents, plant news stories, steal secrets, seduce politicians, and thwart a Soviet spy, all to further the British war effort. Upon returning to England, Susan, hopes that with her mentors’ assistance, her fake identities, and her mother’s consent, she will be permitted to leave school in early 1943 and re-join the SOE as an active agent.
On a serious note, those familiar with TQSiT know that the story took a turn toward historical fiction with its heavy reliance about the real people and real events described in J. Conant’s The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington. In TQSiT, however, whenever the story veered too close to the real people, I switched to the Narnian allegorical conceit, thus avoiding explicitly placing Susan among real people and their lives.
I cannot do that here.
The people, places, and events here are real with the following exceptions: Susan’s three mentors in England, al-Masri, Walker-Smythe, and Tebbitt who were all previously introduced in TSG; and Leutnant Becker and Feldwebel Müeller. With these exceptions, everyone else in the story really lived, they really did these heroic things, they really died and books, websites, and plaques in famous places bear their names and tell their stories. It is with great caution and trepidation that I insert fictional characters into this historical and very well-known account. My intent is to do so carefully, with respect, and with the knowledge that this is not the first time these people and their contributions to World War II have been fictionalized.
Peter and Susan will not be usurping what other, real heroes did.
Peter’s story relies heavily upon Stephen Ambrose’s Pegasus Bridge: June 6, 1944 and Will Fowler’s Pegasus Bridge. The intelligence operation that supported Operation Deadstick is also described in these sources. Not surprisingly, I’ve engaged in more speculation in Susan’s story. Susan’s story comes from several sources documenting the exploits of the women the SOE inserted into occupied countries. Sources include Rita Kramer’s Flames in the Field and Marcus Binney’s The Women Who Lived For Danger.
Given the enormous scope of these stories, I’ve had to leave out many parts and details. This is, in the end, historical fiction, not history and I tell a narrow piece of it, primarily from the points of view of characters who do not know as much as the reader does of the bigger picture.
Last, this is teen rated, most especially for a soldier’s salty language. When the Generals are crude (and search the text of George Patton’s D-Day speech for that), one can expect the same of the common soldier. Further, Susan moves as an adult woman through an adult world and she has some unresolved business with Wing Commander Reginald Tebbitt.
Glossary of terms
Weapons
Enfield .303 - old style rifle of the British army; fitted with a telescopic sight, it is a sniper’s weapon. Private Wally Parr was in charge of the snipers of D Company.
Sten - a very unreliable 9 mm submachine gun; 7 pounds, 30 inches in length, single shot or automatic, and holds 32 rounds of ammunition. Cheap to make, temperamental, and the weapon most used in the Infantry and the SOE.
Bren - the light machine gun of a platoon. One soldier is the gunner and everyone else carries the ammunition. It weighs about 32 pounds and is often mounted on a tripod. It has a range of about 500 yards and fires 120 rounds per minute. I have seen reports that both Private Gray and Corporal Bailey were the Bren gunmen in Lieutenant Brotheridge’s platoon.
Piat - projector infantry anti-tank rocket. Fired from the shoulder, it carried a 3 pound bomb that should (but often did not) explode on impact with a tank. A failed shot left the tank able to fire back.
Little Joe and Big Joe - crossbows used in training SOE agents
808s - Nobel’s Explosive No. 808, a simple plastic explosive, used by the SOE.
Gammon bomb - a type of hand grenade that exploded on impact
Other terms
LZ- Landing Zone - where troops land on D-Day (any D-Day)
Para- paratroopers - men of the Airborne divisions of the Army who jump out of planes into (usually) enemy territory by parachute; in the days before helicopters, paras were sent into occupied territory by glider.
DZ - Drop Zone - Where paras land
D-Day - originally meant the launch day for any military operation; now referred to most typically as the day of the Normandy invasion, June 6, 1944
OCTU - Officer Cadet Training Unit - where officer candidates are trained
Operation Overlord - the term for the Allies’ landings at Normandy to begin the retaking of Europe from the Nazi Germany
Glider Corps - In the days before helicopters, gliders were the way to land a group of troops, supplies, and vehicles in a particular DZ without them being scattered all over the place. Engineless gliders are towed into position by bombers, released, and crash landed in positions where the prangers then engaged the enemy and begin the operation.
Prang, pranging, prangers - the paras who ride in gliders are prangers and they prang out of gliders to begin their action.
NAAFI: The Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes (NAAFI) run the canteen, shops, laundry and recreational services for NCOs/ROs on British bases. Commissioned officers aren’t supposed to go to NAAFI facilities.
Batman - the lower ranked man who helps the officer of his unit - Sam to Frodo, Bunter to Lord Peter, Jeeves to Bertie Wooster.
NCO/RO - Non commissioned officer or rank officer or other rank, a soldier who is not an officer; an “enlisted” man.
Subaltern- subordinate or junior officer, Lieutenants Brotheridge, Sweeney, Wood, Smith, Fox, and Hooper are Major Howard’s subalterns in D Company
2IC or SIC - Second in Command; Captain Priday is Major Howard’s 2IC.
Oxs & Bucks - Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry - a regiment of the British Army
Sappers - Combat-trained engineers of the British Army
Platoon - a fighting unit of 25-30 soldiers
Company - several platoons make up a company
Battalion - several companies make up a Battalion - D Company is part of the 2nd Battalion of the Ox & Bucks
Brigade - several battalions make up a brigade - the Ox & Bucks are part of a larger brigade
Division - several brigades make up a Division. The 2nd Battalion of the Ox & Bucks are part of a brigade that make up the 6th Airborne Division. The British did not have a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th Airborne Division. They created a new one in addition to the 1st Airborne in 1943 and called it the 6th to confuse the Germans.
Milice - a civilian-based paramilitary group in France intended to fight the Resistance, much feared.
Abwehr - German military intelligence operation
RTU (Return to unit) - sent down, demoted, tossed out of whatever choice position you have. In this context the threat that anyone acting up in D Company would be tossed out of the Glider Corps and returned to the regular Ox & Bucks infantry
Special Operations Executive (SOE) - The secret operation created by Winston Churchill and charged with aiding in winning the war by unconventional means. The wiki entry states: it was sometimes referred to as “the Baker Street Irregulars” after the location of its London headquarters. It was also known as “Churchill’s Secret Army” or “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.” Section F is the part responsible for inserting secret agents into Nazi-occupied France.
CO - Commanding Officer or Conducting Officer (if in SOE)
Bod - SOE slang for student/agent in training
Organisation Civil et Militaire - OCM - according to the wiki entry, one of the movements of the French Resistance in the zone occupée, the northern German-occupied region of France.
w/t - wireless telegraph - operating short wave radios for sending and receiving coded messages via Morse Code. An important part of training in the SOE.
ooOOoo
Glossary of Characters
Tommy or Tommy Atkins: Refers to common British soldier
Jerry: Used by Tommies to refer to Germans, also spelled Gerry
Fictional Characters
Colonel George Walker-Smythe - SOE operative based in the British Embassy, Washington D.C., and Susan’s mentor and teacher in The Queen Susan in Tashbaan
Wing Commander Reginald Tebbitt - an SOE agent in Washington, D.C. after he was badly injured when his plane was shot down over North Africa. Susan was his handler and babysitter in the summer of 1942.
Asim bin Kalil a/k/a Major Abdullah ibn Abbas ibn Muhammad al-Masri - Muslim mystic, Egyptian, intelligence officer in the British Army. Also friend of the Pevensies and self-appointed guide as described who dreams of Narnia.
Leutnant Becker - Alsatian, 21st Panzer Division
Feldwebel Müeller - Sergeant, 21st Panzer Division
Real People
General “Windy” Gale - CO of the 6th Airborne
Major John Howard -- CO of D Company, Oxs & Bucks
Captain Brian Priday - Major Howard’s 2IC
Lieutenant Den Brotheridge (Danny) - CO of Platoon 25, later Platoon Able, Glider 1, Company D, Ox & Bucks
Private Wally Parr - Sniper in Lieutenant Brotheridge’s platoon, D Company, Ox & Bucks
Private Billy Gray - solider in Lieutenant Brotheridge’s platoon, D Company, Ox & Bucks; Brotheridge’s batman
Private Charlie Gardner - solider in Lieutenant Brotheridge’s platoon, D Company, Ox & Bucks
Corporal Jack Bailey - soldier in Lieutenant Brotheridge’s platoon, D Company, Ox & Bucks
Vera Atkins - Responsible for F Section of the SOE and the placement of agents in France.
Selwyn Jenson - fiction writer, talent spotter for the SOE
Georges and Thérèse Gondrée- owners of the Gondree Café in Bénouville, France
Lea Vion - Administrator of the Château de Bénouville, a maternity hospital (also spelled “Leah”)
Monsieur Claudius Desvignes - Madame Vion’s Accountant
Monsieur Albert Lebourgeois - Madame Vion’s ambulance driver
Leutnant Hans Hoeller, artillery officer 192 Panzer Grenadier Regiment, 21st Panzer Division
ooOOoo
Maps
An understanding of the basic geography will help immensely in the military strategy of the story
Map of Bénouville Bridges
Normandy beaches, landing zones and sectors
Allied Invasion Force map
Normandy Beaches
Narnia Big Bang Prompts
cofax7: “There is a period when it is clear that you have gone wrong but you continue. Sometimes there is a luxurious amount of time before anything bad happens.”
“Killing is unavoidable but is nothing to be proud of.”
~Jenny Holzer
harmony_lover: In the past, people were born royal. Nowadays, royalty comes from what you do.
~Gianni Versace
unsuitenedt: “We never really are the adults we pretend to be. We wear the mask and perhaps the clothes and posture of grown-ups, but inside our skin we are never as wise or as sure or as strong as we want to convince ourselves and others we are. We may fool all the rest of the people all of the time, but we never fool our parents.” ~ Frank Pittman
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3 Part 1 Part 2
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6 Part 1 Part 2