Talk:Charley's War

Charley's War written by Pat Mills and drawn by Joe Colquhoun first appeared in 200th issue of Battle Picture Weekly, published on 6th January 1979. Aimed at a readership of 8-14 year olds it combined Boys'Own adventure, with searing anti-war commentary and mordant humour.

The story ran for 297 episodes until 26th January 1985, until Pat Mills stops writing the script and another writer, Scott Goodall takes over to continue the story into World War Two. The story exhibited a sophistication in narrative technique and historical accuracy that was second to none. The writing was horrific, understated and comic by turn, and would draw on actual historical sources for some of the incidents and characters. Joe Colquhoun's artwork was equal to Pat Mills' writing in terms of historical accuracy and characterisation, in a genre that tended towards caricature. Mills makes use of short and long story archs, and pre-figuring which largely counters the episodic feel of other contemporary war stories. In Charley Bourne he creates a well-rounded and developed character, who is humane, heroic, flawed, apathetic, limited in his outlook and perception, that sets him apart from other comic characters. He is not the Boy's Own hero, leading the attack with all guns blazing.

The story opens with 16 year old Charley Bourne, a not-too bright Cockney lad working in a London bus depot. Tricked by a pair of colleagues, he loses his job and decides to join up, claiming to be 18 (though forgetting to change his date of birth on signing up. He joins the 5th battalion, the Westshires (a fictional regiment), and arrives at the front on 2nd June 1916, four weeks before the first day of the battle of the Somme.

Charley meets his best friend, Ginger Jones, a sardonic, 19-year old volunteer, who takes pleasure in mocking the naive Charley Bourne. The early episodes make use of Charley's semi-literate letters home to his, mother and brother, a narrative device that provides the story with many ironic moments.

Charley meets his platoon sergeant, `Old Bill' Tozer, a regular army soldier, who is to feature in much of the story. His platoon commander is 1st Lt David Thomas, an university educated 23-year old, who unlike some of the other officers in the story, genuinely cares about the welfare of his men, and is regarded with affection and respect by the platoon. Other early characters include, `Pop' Coles, a Boer War veteran, who has lost two sons in a gas attack in the war, and like Charley has lied about his age to join up (clearly older than 41 age limit that was imposed before conscription came in after the Somme|). `Mad Mick' O'Riley, a huge, intemperate Irishman, who has been advised to take up knitting after a fight with a sergeant. Lucky, another veteran and Toots, a young soldier whose fear of dying is to be tragically realised on the first day of the Somme. The Vickers gunner, L/Cpl Smith 70, so called because there are so many Smiths in the British Army, and his number two, the slow-witted Young Albert. Young Albert's only goal in life is to fire the Vickers, something Smith 70 will never allow him to do, because `he doesn't have the experience'. But without the experience he will never fire the machine gun, thus keeping Albert in a perpetual Catch-22 situation.

Episodes: 1-16: Joining up and the first day of the Somme

2nd June 1916-1st July 1916

The first 10 episodes build up to the climax of the opening day of the Somme on 1st July 1916. Charley sees death for the first time. He kills his first German, a sniper, during a trench raid. A recurring character, and Charley's nemesis, 2nd Lt the Hon. D'Arcy Snell, another platoon commander in the same company, is introduced. Snell is the anti-thesis of Thomas, a man who revels in war, who sees it as a game and enjoys killing rather too much. The narrative reveals that he is the son of a mining magnate and has spent time managing mines in southern Africa.

Lucky and Charley are on sentry duty when Charley catches Lucky attempting to shoot himself in the foot, to get himself out of the trenches. Charley foils his plans and Lucky is buried alive in a dug-out. They rescue him, but he loses his leg, but Lucky thanks Charley for allowing him a way out with honour.

The first day of the Somme finds the Westshires in the sixth wave allowing the story to follow a number of battalions, including the East Surreys and the West Yorkshire regiments (battalions who sufferered near 100% casualties within the first hour) as they go into battle. The Westshires go over the top and pass over the dead and wounded of the earlier waves. It is only by Lt Thomas's tactical astuteness that most of the men reach the German trenches. Charley and co survive a flamethrower attack and capture a German machine gunner, a young lad called Karl, after wrestling Pop Coles to the ground who is determined to bayonet the German to avenge his dead sons. As the soldiers swap photos and cigarettes, Snell arrives and shoots Karl, claiming they have orders not to take any prisoners (an order issued to soldiers before the battle).

The company moves on to assault the second line and Mad Mick is wounded in the belly by a booby-trap and shelters in a cellar with other wounded. A German counter-attack and a direct hit on the cellar threatens all inside and Mick holds up the cellar ceiling long enough to allow the casualties to be evacuated before being buried alive. The first day of the Somme ends with a roll-call that shows the platoon's drastically depleted ranks.

Episodes 17-28: The Lost Platoon and the Cavalry Charge at High Wood

July - 14th July 1916

Charley and co are on burial duty at Thiepval Wood. The cavalry arrive, representing the hope for a break of the stalement of trench warfare. A new character, `Lonely' (named after a character in 1970s television spy drama, `Callan') is introduced. Lonely is clearly mentally ill, and attempts to bury himself alive in the mass graves. Charley, Ginger and Lonely are sent on ration carrying duty that evening and when Lonely goes over the top, hoping to invite a German bullet, Charley and Ginger follow. They encounter a German raiding party in No Man's Land, along with Wolfgang `Wolfie' Stumpf of the 16th Bavarian Reservists and his friend, the slow-witted giant, Rudy. The three fight off the German group, but mistakenly end up in the German lines and are captured. The three pass the time by listening to Lonely's story of why he wants to die - the story of the Lost Platoon. The narrative flash-back to Christmas Day 1915. Lonely is a soldier in Lt Snell's platoon of sixty men. The Somme was a quiet part of the line, and neither side are prepared to invite retaliation by aggressive action. The Westshires and a Bavarian unit opposite shout to one another and even send over rations. Snell is determined to stop the unofficial truce, and orders Lonely, who mans the trench catapult, to send over a tin packed with explosives. As the Germans gather to await the next food parcel, the bomb lands amongst them, killing them. That night, a box barrage is laid down on the platoon's section of the line, allowing no one in or out, and across No Man's Land comes hundreds of vengeful Germans armed with trench knives and saw-bayonets. The platoon are put to the bayonet and Lonely buries himself a `funk-hole in the snow'. Snell, who has been at company HQ, returns to find all of his men dead, his first concern being that it will affect his promotion. He concocts a story of Germany wickedness and betrayal and forces Lonely to back-up his story in return for home leave. A sickened Lonely goes home to a hero's welcome and leaves his wife and child determined to end his life on his return to France.

As Lonely finishes his narrative, Stumpf (whose brother died as a result of Snell's treachery), interrupts and attempts to kill them all. Charley wounds Stumpf with a handy trench picket and a British gas attack allows the three to hide themselves in the drain channel beneath the duck boards. As the heavier than air, gas threatens the three, they rise up, gun down a pair of sentries and escape behind the lines towards some woods as the Scottish regiments, `the kilties', `the devils in skirts' attack during one of the few successful pushes of the Somme, the Night Attack of 14th July 1916. Charley and co shelter above the gas in some trees as do Wolfie and Rudy in a nearby tree. A comical fight ensues that is ended when a shell uproots a tree pitching the group into the gas. Charley has no mask and inhales a mouthful of gas. Ginger and Lonely carry the disabled Charley into High Wood where it seems Charley will choke to death on the liquid produced by his damaged lungs.

The day dawns with an attack by the cavalry, one of the last full-scale cavalry assaults in the war. Charley regains consciousness and as the cavalry advance, the three notice Germans, including Wolfie and Rudy, lying in ambush in the corn. Lonely wanders off into the corn, seeing his dead comrades marching in columns of four in the sky, and is seen by a spotter plane. Wolfie guns him down betraying his comrades and the cavarly attack. Most are cut down and Charley kills the wounded Rudy with a cavalry sabre. Ginger and Charley mount a horse and return to their lines.

Episodes 29-40: Execution of Lt Thomas and Field Punishment

1st August 1916-August 1916

Charley celebrates his 17th birthday in the line, which is rudely interrupted by a bombardment - from their own guns. Pop is hit by a shell and loses his legs. As he dies he imagines that Charley and Ginger are his dead sons. Thomas sends a succession of runners to get a message to the artillery to cease fire. Charley volunteers as the thirteenth runner and makes it to the second line, running into Lt Snell who has been trapped in a forward sap, caved in by a direct hit. Snell knocks Charley out and uses him as a human body shield, as he climbs over the top to reach the safety of the trench. A German sniper is stopped by a comrade, who ironically comments on the bravery of the British officer saving a wounded comrade.

Snell refuses to take Charley's message, until after he has had his tea, served by his obsequious batman, Trotters. By the time, he phones through to the guns, Charley has `gone to die with his mates'. Charley returns to find many dead and dying and a German attack in progress. He mans the Vickers gunning down the advancing soldiers, seeing the face of Snell instead. A wounded Smith 70 wrestles with Charley to regain control of his beloved machine gun, before Thomas appears ordering them back. He and a few survivors have left the frontline for a support trench becuase `what does a few feet of hell matter'.

The survivors leave the line and to their relief realise they are alive. Their moment of joy is ended when battle police arrive to arrest Lt Thomas, on the charge of cowardice and deserting his position.

Charley and co are in rest. A new character, Weeper Watkins, a jolly soldier, and ex-music hall ventriloquist is introduced. They watch as a line of tear-gas blinded soldiers shuffle towards an aid station. They go to visit wounded and limbless comrades only too glad to be going home to Blighty. The odious bully, Sgt Bacon of the Royal Military Police comes in to bait them, only to be seen off by the much-tougher Sgt Tozer. Charley and Ginger stare in horror at two soldiers facing Field Punishment Number One - up to twenty-eight days of constant drilling and crucifixion on gunwheels or fences, on food and water only. Charley falls foul of Bacon and Weeper humiliates the MP in front of an officer.

The soldiers put on a concert party, in which Sgt Tozer shows off his tattoes, battle honours of the North West Frontier, the Taj Mahal, an Union Jack, a dreadnought and regimental badge, and Kaiser Bill being jabbed in the arse by Britannia (`she what rules the waves') on his bicep, which he animates by flexing his muscle. Charley, Weeper and Ginger are ambushed by Bacon and two MPs after the concert party. They fight, Charley knocks out Bacon and the arrival of some tough Australians sees off the other two MPs. They tie Bacon to a gun wheel and the camp pelt the hated NCO with mud and stones.

Thomas is found guilty of cowardice in his court martial and for the honour of the regiment a firing squad is formed from his own platoon, including Charley, Ginger and Weeper.

Thomas is made to wear a gasmask back to front so the soldiers cannot see his face and cotton wool is stuffed in his mouth to stop him crying out. Charley is in turmoil. He joined up to kill the enemy not his own soldiers, and it is only his fear of disobeying orders that stops him refusing to join the squad. But he recognises Thomas's limp and throws down his rifle. Weeper joins him and as they walk away the four remaining members carry out the sentence. Charley and Weeper go before their company commander who gives them 14 days Field Punishment Number One. Bacon is determined to break their spirit and Weeper succumbs. Charley comes close, but a group of his mates arrive to give him support. Bacon is defeated but takes final revenge when he leaves the pair on the wheel during a German airraid. As flames lick towards them and the smoke threatens to overcome them, Weeper uses his escapology skills to free himself and Charley. Bacon who has been hit in the legs, lies nearby, and Charley can either save the weakened Weeper or Bacon. He leaves the sergeant to die in the flames. Weeper, whose eyes have never been the same since a dose of tear gas earlier in the war, is now blinded. He joins a column of blind men as they shuffle towards a lorry which will take them home.

Charley and Ginger stop to chat to the eccentric L/Cpl Angel who is guarding a series of tarpaulin objects. These are the new weapon - the tank.

Episodes 41-53: Death of Ginger and the tank attack at Flers

September 1916

Smith 70, a lovely of anything new-fangled has transferred to the Heavy Machine Gun Corps, the cover name for the first tank regiments. As Charley and Ginger look on in bemusement he drives his tank, `Donner und Blitzen' through a French farmhouse. Charley and Ginger debate the potential of these new weapons - Charley optimistic that it might break the deadlock; Ginger typically pessimistic - as a French officer looks on disbelief as the Briish hang out their washing on the new machines.

The Westshires go up to the line to replace a northern battalion. Ginger and Charley are on guard duty as Ginger calls Charley over to look at an amusing notice: "This desirable trench to let, own water supply, gas laid on, only 5 minutes from the front (1/- a day)". Without warning a shell blows Ginger apart.

In a classic tryptich of frames, Charley walks down a rain-lashed trench shovel in one hand, carrying a bulging sandbag in the other. An officer in the foreground challenges him, asking what is in the bag. He asks him again as Charley gets closer, his eyes registering nothing. He asks Charley if he has been looting supplies and asks him again what is in the bag to which Charley answers, `My mate, sir. My mate, Ginger.' Charley and the officer bury what is left of Ginger in a grave. It is a shocking series of images, that is not gory, but allows the imagination to work far more powerfully. The reader can only imagine what is left of Ginger shovelled into the sack. It establishes a typical Mills theme of the arbitrariness of survival and the suddeness of death by getting the reader to bond with a main character only to kill him off later in the series.

Charley returns to his trench, still in a state of shock. He joins a game of `house' as his comrades wonder when fear will get the better of him and when he will crack. That night he suffers terrifying nightmares and runs screaming into the trench. Charley snaps out it when he comes across the supposedly redoubtable Sgt Tozer, in the midst of his own pre-battle horrors in a funk-hole. Tozer tells Charley that fear is nothing to be ashamed of, and convinces Charley that murderous rage is the best antidote: `Make the Hun pay in blood, Bourne.'

September 15th and it is the dawn of the first use of tanks in history. The replacements arrive, including the cowardly Oliver `Oiley' Crawleigh, Charley's brother-in-law. Charley is determined to remain on his own, as losing friends is proving to be too painful. He treats Oiley's pitiful attempts to buy his friendship and protection with scorn.

The tanks attack and crush the German frontline - with German troops holding up bibles in supplication. Charley bayonets a German repeatedly as his mate, Prunes, tells him, `He's dead, Charley. He ain't going to get any deader.'

Oiley attempts to crawl away from battle but mistakenly crawls towards the German second line. Charley, against his better nature goes after him, determined that he will not allow his sister Dolly to become a widow, and their unborn child to be fatherless. He rescues Oliver and they go to an aid of a broken-down tank, Smith 70's `Donner und Blitzen'. As the crew, stumble out, half-crazed by petrol fumes, Charley saves them from a sniper, and he and Oiley climb aboard. Charley uses his experience on the buses to restart the engine as the crazed tank commander, Sgt `Wild Eyes' of 17th Hussars - the Death or Glory boys, rages against his cursed machine.

The tank starts just before a German field gun can zero in on it and they clank towards the village of Flers. They destroy the German defences and a German cluster grenade starts a fire. The burning tank crashes into a church and as the crew abandon the landship, Wildeyes goes down with his `ship' blasting away with his Hotchkiss.

Charley and company rest by the road as reinforcements move up. Oiley is convinced that he will not survive the war and is determined to inflict a wound upon himself. He places his foot in the path of an advancing tank track and loses two toes. He returns to say goodbye, and offers Charley twenty pounds for helping him out. Charley makes him eat his money, and makes an enemy for life.

Episode 54-72: The Judgment Troopers / Charley's Blighty Wound

October 1916

The soldiers are in the reserve trenches and the autumn rains have turned the Somme into a swamp. We are introduced to the bullying soldier, Grogan, the second hardest man in the company after the late Mad Mick. A young soldier, Titch, is covered in lice and freaking out. Charley and Titch are volunteered to take trench props up the line along a heavily-shelled road. They come under fire and Titch and the mule carrying the load take cover in the water-logged shell-holes, the `hellholes'. The mule quickly drowns in the liquid mud and Titch calls on Charley to shoot him rather than let him drown. Charley uses his rifle to pull Titch clear, but his war is over. This episode was one of the few to be censored by the editor, when Pat Mills original intention was to have Charley put his comrade out of his misery, rather than rescue him.

Charley and co move up the line and try and get some sleep in a funk-hole, the shallow dugouts built into the trench walls. They were notoriously susceptible to cave-ins. Charley decides he will sleep with his feet sticking out, rather risking being buried alive than losing his head. A shell hits the trench and the dugout caves-in. They are rescued but the affable Prunes rubs the back of his head after being struck by a piece of spent shrapnel. Charley takes him to the first aid post to see the feared `Dr No', the battalion medical officer. Dr No is a wonderful bit of characterisation by Joe Colquhoun, sardonic, with a dew drop nose and no bedside manner, he treats his patients as malingers and skrimshankers. A succession of soldiers, clearly not malingering show him their wounds, trench feet, etc and his only remedy is the number 9 pill, a laxative that was routinely given out to soldiers during WW1. Prunes is prepared to turn back rather than `be up all night'. As they wait, Prunes goes quiet. Dr No reaches Prunes and he asks `what his excuse is for staying out of the trenches?' Charley answers, `He's dead....sir.' This episode is influenced by a scene in `All Quiet on the Western Front' where Paul carries his old friend Kat to the aid post after he is wounded in the leg. His carry goes quiet and when he arrives, Kat is dead, seemingly unmarked. A medical orderly notices a pin prick at the base of his skull, he has been hit by a small shell splinter that has killed him instantly.

The next episode sees the beginning of one of the darkest and most violent story-arcs in `Charley's War', the Judgement Troopers. It marks the turning point in the war for Charley and after his experiences in the coming episodes he becomes a far more bitter and world-weary character.

The Bavarians opposite Charley's unit are replaced by the Judgment Troopers, veteran assault troops previously in action on the Eastern Front. They are led by the ruthless Colonel Zeiss, the son of a labourer and a washerwoman, frequently at odds with his blue-blooded fellow officers who look down on him with contempt. Zeiss advocates total war, flaunting the Geneva Convention, much to the disgust of a Major attached to his unit. He goes to work straightaway sending a raiding party to the British trenches to take a prisoner before launching Operation `Wotan'.

Charley and pal, Duffy are on guard duty. Charley is visibly fatigued and barely keep his eyes open. Duffy tries his best to keep him awake, by getting him to lay a trail of army biscuits to lure a giant rat, Satan, on to the sleeping Grogan. Charley and Duffy fashion hooks out of old barbed wire and go fishing in No Man's Land (Mills was made to change an earlier story line of fishing for rats, which the editor considered distasteful). Charley snags one of the German raiders, tearing off an epaulette. When he tells the sarge, he is told to go back to sentry duty - he has only found a corpse. As the rain falls, Charley's eyelids close and he falls asleep on sentry duty - punishable by death. Meanwhile Schnitzel and co creep into the trench and advance on Charley, knives drawn.

Before the Germans can reach Charley, an officer appears and catches Charley asleep. He sentences him to death, and is about to carry out the sentence (a shocking image of Charley shaking with fear with a revolver at his temple, as he pleads for clemency). But the raiders grab the officer, deeming he will be a more useful source of intelligence. Charley shouts an alarm and as a German advances to silence him with an entrenching tool, he slips on a wet duckboard and falls on Charley's bayonet. Charley shoots another as they escape with the officer into No Man's Land. Tozer questions Charley on how the raiders got into the trench unnoticed, and as Charley confesses, Tozer pretends not to hear because of the crash of exploding shells nearby. In typical Mills irony, Tozer announces that `Officers don't blab, Bourne. They're equipped with stiff upper lips' - a statement undone in the next scene as the officer reveals all after being tortured by the brutal Zeiss. He draws Zeiss a detailed trench map, and Zeiss puts the next stage of `Operation Wotan' into action.

Zeiss inspects a line of German pioneers (a wonderful study of characters by the artist Joe Colqhoun). Old pot-bellied second-liners and narrow-shouldered, bespectacled youths, clearly unfit for any front-line duty are `volunteered' by Zeiss to be in the first wave - with the threat of his Luger. The incredulous Major, who despises Zeiss for his low-born background, threatens to report the Colonel to his superiors. Zeiss hopes to soak up the British defensive fire at the expense of the Pioneers and cooks. In the British trench, Charley and co huddle around a brazier as Duffy reads from the penny-dreadful, `Red Rubes Revenge'. An artillery bombardment leaves Duffy with a large piece of shrapnel in his back - helpless to a horde of hungry rats who threaten to eat him alive (his greatest fear, already prefigured in an earlier episode). Charley kicks the rats off the prone Duffy and reads the ending to Duffy as as his life ebbs away. As the shelling lifts, hundreds of Germans advance across towards them as the platoon stands to.

86.17.235.9 21:38, 12 May 2006 (UTC)