Dear Reader,
I hope you’ve enjoyed reading Grace and Jack’s story. As a writer of historical fiction, I’m fascinated with Britain and the time period surrounding WWI. So much was happening—not only the war but Ireland’s Easter Rising, women’s suffrage, and the dawn of mass production in automobiles, food, clothing, and technology. Women left their homes and domestic service to work in factories and fields and commandeer positions formerly held by men as the war years dragged on. It was a time of wonderment and change, and sadly of loss.
While Not by Sight is wholly a product of my imagination, I included a few factual people and places I’d like to share. First, the Women’s Forage Corps (WFC) did exist and was a precursor to the Women’s Land Army of WWI, the latter better known for their service during WWII. While information about this group seems to be scarce, I did come across this article from the April 1919 issue of the British publication Land and Water Extra. “The foundations of the Women’s Forage Corps, R.A.S.C. (Royal Army Service Corps), were laid in 1915, but the Corps did not come into being as a whole till March 1917. They [WFC] work in gangs of six, headed by a Gang Supervisor. . . . Some help to bale hay and work with a steam baler, while others act as transport drivers in charge of the horses; these are responsible for the carriage of the hay from the stacks to the railway stations. There are other interesting branches of forage work, such as chaffing, wire-stretching, tarpaulin sheet mending, sack making . . .”1
Espionage was also a fact and a real threat during WWI involving German and Dutch spies, the use of invisible ink, and Britain’s MI5 constantly on the hunt for domestic traitors. The woman Maud in my story is based on a real person who worked in Room 40, cracking codes and convicting spies. “Mabel Beatrice Elliott uncovered secret messages written in invisible ink between the lines of letters she inspected while working as a deputy assistant censor for the British War Office. Her role remained largely unknown because she gave that evidence under the false name Maud Phillips.”2
The exotic dancer Mata Hari is best known to the world as the femme fatale spy of WWI. Her Paris trial on July 24, 1917, ended with her conviction and subsequent execution on October 15, 1917. Recent evidence suggests she may not have been a German agent after all. Research reveals an intriguing picture of the German and French intelligence services inadvertently working together to achieve a common goal—the elimination of Mata Hari—and a trial in which the prosecution never called (and the court never allowed the defense to call) two witnesses who could have proved or disproved the case against her. After about forty minutes, the court found Mata Hari guilty, for which no evidence was presented.3
The port at Richborough was also a real place, near the town of Sandwich in Kent. During the war, a secret Q port by the banks of the River Stour was the starting point of a ferry service for troops and munitions to France and to Flanders. The chosen spot for the hidden port was under the Roman fortress of Richborough.4
Lastly, I admit to embellishing somewhat the destruction wrought by German Gotha planes on Margate, August 1917. Though enemy planes did bomb the area on the twenty-third of that month, the damage was minimal and caused few deaths.5 A more horrendous attack occurred in that part of the city on September 30, 1917, resulting in many losses of both servicemen and civilians.
—KB
Notes
2. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/world-war-i-spies-caught-by-woman-who-read-invisible-ink-1.1113118.