Following a wonderfully captivating evening of talks from literary agent, Jenny Savill and historical fiction author, Gregory Sayer, our competitions manager, Summer Quigley, read Louise Morrish’s adjudication, as below:
‘I was honoured and thrilled to be chosen to adjudicate the October competition. The brief was to tell the tale of an historic event and add a terrifically haunting twist. All in just 300 words.
This was a particularly challenging brief, as the stories not only had to give a glimpse into the past, but also send a shiver down this reader’s spine.
Writing historical fiction is a special challenge, even without trying to incorporate a haunting twist. Success rests with the details. If you can get the tiny details right, then authenticity naturally follows, and the reader is successfully transported back in time. It’s worth remembering that human nature hasn’t changed over the centuries. In years gone by, our ancestors felt the same emotions as we do today, they experienced life very much like we do, they fell in and out of love like we do. People in the past just wore strange clothes that were once in fashion, used expressions that may have fallen out of modern use, and perhaps ate meals we might barely recognise as food now.
So, it’s all in the detail…
Back to the competition winners…well done to everyone who entered, I had great fun reading your stories…’
And the winners are…
First Place: The Others Will Follow by Damon L. Wakes
Second Place: Cause and Effect by John K. Miles
Third Place: Hard Landing by John Quinn
Highly Commended: Stag by Robert Stuart
First Place: The Others Will Follow by Damon L. Wakes
Even the title of this story was creepy. I could picture the bleak, frozen Arctic scene, all from the little details the author includes: the frost on the glasses lenses, the cold in the boots, the barking of the dogs. And then the author plunges the reader one step further into the icy tundra, by describing ‘the flaps of the sleeping bag frozen hard as armour plate.’ By using an old-fashioned sleeping bag (no zip!) and then describing the material in such a harsh, sinister way (frozen as armour plate) the whole scene is given a dark, authentic edge. Very well done.
A week’s travel north of One Ton Depot, he found the thought fixed in his mind. It was as ever-present as the frost on his glasses, the cold in his boots, the barking of the dogs. But it was Dimitri who said it:
“Do you think they’re behind us?”
The answer caught in Cherry’s throat. The team might have been just over the horizon when they gave up waiting. Perhaps if they’d dared to venture just a few miles south of the depot, they might have found them. Scott, Wilson, Oates, Bowers, Evans: they were out there somewhere on the ice, and now no one was coming. But Dimitri himself was getting worse—his right hand whitened and creased from constant exposure to damp and cold—so Cherry held back this reply.
“Could have missed them in the bad weather,” he said, instead. “Might be ahead.”
It barely mattered now, he supposed. They could hardly have waited longer then, let alone turn back now. Dimitri was in a bad way, and they had no more dog food but the dogs themselves.
Cherry had Dimitri light the spirit while he set the tent out over its bamboo frame. Later, despite a stomach full of pemmican and a warm drink, he lay awake. It was approaching the equinox, and he cursed the twelve-hour nights. It was all too horrible—he was almost afraid to go to sleep now.
Later, still sleepless, he was disturbed by the sound of boots in snow. Throwing back the flaps of his sleeping bag—frozen hard as armour plate—he stumbled out of the tent and saw a lone figure marching in the low light.
“Oates?” he called. “Where are the others?”
But Oates did not turn to face him.
“The others will follow,” came the reply.
Second Place: Cause and Effect by John K. Miles
‘This was a strange story, but in a good way. The author took the visceral, disturbing elements of an execution, and gave them a wicked twist. The author used some good details here – for instance, I particularly liked the ‘gleaming longsword’ that cut through a neck ‘much cleaner than an axe.’
The young queen shuffled from the Tower towards the fresh-cut oak scaffold, the scent of sap permeating the air as Father Thames sang a gentle song of farewell in the distance. Despite making her peace with God she was terrified, dazed as a young doe surprised in the woods.
The hooded executioner was short and plump, wielding a gleaming longsword rather than the traditional axe.
“An expert swordsman,” Cromwell had said. “It’s a final gift from the King. Much cleaner than an axe.”
Anne climbed the steep steps of the scaffold, determined to uphold her dignity, as she turned to face the crowd. Her uncle, Norfolk, was there at the front, hard impassive eyes staring. How had he survived whilst George and her had been condemned?
The crowd was silent as Anne spoke with words so well rehearsed that she was able to say them without thinking. In her mind, she was already dead. She knelt, removing her ermine mantle to reveal a fragile pale neck, then drew a golden coin from the bespoke pocket in her red kirtle as the executioner approached to collect his fee.
“Don’t worry Anne, my mother and father were great warriors and I too was born to the sword.”
The voice was female and she recognised it immediately, the words tinged with the sonorous intonation of Spain. A flash of red hair caught the morning sun, framed against the black of the executioner’s hood. Anne’s scrambled mind tried to make sense of what she perceived, but she was too traumatised to speak.
“But you’re dead,” said her mind.
The woman laughed. “Not everything is as it seems. And not everything that seems is.”
Anne shivered as Catherine drew close, whispering into her ear with icy venom.
“I’m not dead. I am death.”
And before Anne could reply, her head was separated from her shoulders, prompting the crowd to give a polite round of applause.
Third Place: Hard Landing by John Quinn
‘In this story, the author took a very well-known piece of history, and put their own spin on it. I wasn’t born when man first walked on the moon, but this is such an iconic moment in history that it worked well in this context. The twist at the end was haunting, but not in the usual ghostly way, which was very clever.’
It’s the most stressful 10 minutes in Neil Armstrong’s life – warning buzzers sound five times, each one on its own enough for the captain of the Apollo 11 mission to abort the moon landing. But Armstrong chooses to override them all and continues to pilot lunar module Eagle the final 30,000 feet to the moons’ dusty surface. His decisions are life and death for him and fellow astronaut, Buzz Aldrin. But failure to be the first man to set foot on the Moon would destroy Armstrong’s own sense of destiny and be a savage blow to US prestige in the eyes of the estimated 650 million TV viewers entranced around the world.
Now, six hours and 39 minutes after touchdown, with Eagle safely settled on brittle rocks, systems checked and everything in place, is the moment that will define Armstrong’s life. The module’s external camera is focussed on the astronaut’s spacesuit and helmet as he steps from the Eagle’s ladder and plants his foot on the moon’s surface. He breathes deeply and speaks the words that are immediately committed to history. ‘That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.’
Showing confidence remarkable for his 23 years, Steven Spielberg leans back in his collapsible wooden and canvas chair, the one with Director screen-printed on its back, smiles and calls, ‘Cut! That’s a wrap, well done everyone. We’ve already got the rest in the can. We’re done.’
Only then do the dark-suited and cropped-haired agents appear from the shadows. They round up the small team of lighting and sound engineers, actors, set dressers and goffers.
Just Spielberg remains, alone and immobile, as his former colleagues are locked inside a dark fleet of armoured troop carriers, whose diesel engines fill the night with fumes and fury. The director shakes his head as he watches a dust plume engulf the convoy on its journey into the dark desert night.
Highly Commended: Stag by Robert Stuart
‘This story was quite clever in that the reader is led to think one thing, when the reality is very different. The author created a clear image of a lone Roman soldier, performing his eternal sentry duty, and then the sudden juxtaposition with the modern day was a very unexpected twist at the end. I very much enjoyed reading this one.’
Gaius Metelius is on stag. Again. He seems to be doing a lot more than his fair share of sentry duty but there again, he is a very junior recruit, with no money to bribe the Centurion. The night is misty and he has to concentrate hard on his watch. There doesn’t appear to be another soldier either to the right or left of him and that is just not right. Still, there is a lot about this place that is not right. The weather, for a start. Gaius is from the south of Gaul, a Romano-Celt who misses the warm sunshine. By his reckoning, tonight must be Samhain, which is celebrated by all Celts, even in this benighted land of savages. And savage they are. He was on stag when they erupted into the city, led by that red-haired she-devil screaming for revenge and Roman blood. He remembers standing with the veterans in the Temple of the Devine Claudius here in Camulodunum and being terrified. He is only seventeen and this was his first taste of action. Strangely, he cannot remember waking up in Sick Bay. He can only remember a huge brute of an Iceni throwing a rock that hit his helmet. After that his memory is kind of hazy but he seems to have been on stag ever since.
‘I told you there was something odd about that mist!’ Dan says excitedly, waving his mobile at the other University of Essex students who share the house.
‘What?’ asks Mary.
‘Look closely.’ Dan hands her the phone.
‘That’s really weird. It looks just like a Roman soldier.’
‘Trick of the light. It was dark. Shadow from a car headlight, maybe,’ says Ian.
‘Yeah, you’re probably right,’ says Dan. ‘Even so, creepy thing to happen on Hallowe’en.’
And well done to everyone else who entered. Best of luck for next time!
