The Ghost Road

AUTHOR'S NOTE

The reader may wish to know more about some of the historical characters encountered in this novel.

Colonel Marshall-of-the-Ten-Wounds was killed attempting to cross the Sambre-Oise canal, having led his men 'without regard for his personal safety'. He was awarded a posthumous VC.

James Kirk, who paddled himself out on to the canal to give covering fire, was also awarded a posthumous VC.

Wilfred Owen's MC, for gallantry in capturing an enemy machine-gun and inflicting 'considerable losses' on the enemy at the battle of Joncourt, was awarded after his death.

Rivers drew on his Eddystone data in several published papers, but the major joint work he and Hocart planned was never written. His notebooks are in the Rare Manuscripts Department of Cambridge University Library.

Njiru, Kundaite, Namboko Taru, Namboko Emele, Nareti, Lembu and the captive child are also historical, but of them nothing more is known.

The following works can be unreservedly recommended:

W. H. R. Rivers by Richard Slobodin (Columbia University Press, 1978)

Memories of Lewis Carroll by Katharine Rivers, with an Introduction by Richard Slobodin (Library Research News, McMaster University, 1976)

Collected Letters of Wilfred Owen (Oxford University Press, 1967)

Wilfred Owen by Jon Stallworthy (Oxford University Press, 1974)

Owen the Poet by Dominic Hibberd (Macmillan, 1986)

Wilfred Owen, The Last Year by Dominic Hibberd (Constable, 1992)

Wilfred Owens Voices: Language and Community by Douglas Kerr (Clarendon Press, 1993)

Wilfred Owen, Poet and Soldier by Helen McPhail (Gliddon Books in association with the Wilfred Owen Association, 1993)