The Daughters of Mars

Author’s Note

The punctuation used in this narrative might seem occasionally eccentric, but is designed to honor that of the forgotten private journals of the Great War, written by men and women who frequently favored dashes rather than commas. Many of the smaller locations and institutions in this novel are fictional, though based generally on the medical installations of the period.

The incidents involving the hospital ship Archimedes are based broadly on what befell the hospital ship Marquette, in which valiant New Zealand nurses served. I hope New Zealanders will forgive my appropriating some of the Marquette material for my own purposes. As well, the involvement of an Irish regiment in these matters is fictional, and not meant to cast reflection on any venerable regiment.

The clearing station at Deux Églises did not exist (though one existed at a small village named Trois Arbres more or less in the same location). Similarly, the clearing station of Mellicourt is fictional in name, but not in terms of the labors undertaken there by nurses. The château named Baincthun never existed, but, in a similar location, the prototype of the formidable Lady Tarlton of the novel—in real life a woman of lively intelligence and great beauty named Lady Dudley—ran a similar Australian voluntary hospital. I hope these few liberties do not detract from the enjoyment of this tale.