![\"Shadows](\"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Wshadowsinaphoto-196x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Shadows in a Photograph — by David McMichael (Austin Macauley, London, 2016) [Photograph by Edith-Mary Smith]<\/p><\/div>The novel Shadows in a Photograph<\/em> by David McMichael (Austin Macauley Publishers, 2016) describes life from the viewpoint of Peter Waring. The story begins not too long after the Great War ends and focuses at first on Peter\u2019s boyhood exile to Cumberland. He and his mother must leave London to live, fatherless and husbandless, with relatives in the north of England. McMichael is a master of setting. His description of Peter\u2019s departure from the railway station and the locomotive, \u201cA black monster, it stood there, wisps of steam escaping with a faint hiss from around its pistons<\/em>\u201d evokes Harry Potter\u2019s departure for Hogwarts.<\/p>\n In Cumberland, Peter meets two girls: the tomboy, Jamie, and the pretty and somewhat older, Jordan. They resurface later as young women as the story follows Peter into medical school and into the Royal Air Force as an RAF doctor attached to Bomber Command.<\/p>\n Second World War afficionados will appreciate how McMichael lays out the familiar milestones of those early years of war: the removal of signposts throughout the British Isles, the Blackout, Dunkirk, London\u2019s Windmill Theatre (famous for never closing), the fifty destroyers that Roosevelt sent in answer to Churchill\u2019s plea, Churchill himself, his speeches, the importance of radar (\u2018RDF,\u2019 so-called), the \u2018Famous Few,\u2019 including Douglas Bader\u2014the pilot who had lost both legs, the controversy of Leigh-Mallory\u2019s \u2018Big Wing,\u2019 and then how, at the crucial stage of the Battle of Britain, Hitler ordered his Luftwaffe to switch from attacking Fighter Command airfields to bombing London.<\/p>\n Back then, everyone in Britain would likely have been a fan of \u2018ITMA\u2019\u2014\u2018It\u2019s That Man Again,\u2019 the hugely popular radio (wireless<\/em>!) show starring comedian Tommy Handley and his gang of characters. Their catchphrases were famous throughout the war years and McMichael refers on more than one occasion to ITMA\u2019s memorable Mrs Mopp: \u201cIt\u2019s being so cheerful what keeps me going;\u201d Also: \u201cCan I do you now, Sir?\u201d And let\u2019s not forget: \u201cTTFN,\u201d which, as everyone should know, stands for \u201cTa ta for now.\u201d<\/p>\n On a more tragic vein, McMichael\u2019s novel dwells, from time to time, on the horrible burn injuries that can be sustained by aircrew when their planes catch fire. The achievements of the East Grinstead burns unit plastic surgeon, Archibald McIndoe, feature prominently in the book. Of course, the novel\u2019s lead character, Peter Waring, becomes a doctor himself, and readers will expect some in-depth details of the doctoring life. They will not be disappointed by the amputation scene or by the delivery of a baby.<\/p>\n McMichael\u2019s novel is a compendium of compelling scenes, rendered with astonishing care: A WAAF nurse gives Peter his first experience of sex (\u201cHere, let me show you what a woman likes. This woman at least.\u201d); a close call with an exploding bomb (\u201cHe could see nothing other than a blood-red curtain, hear nothing but a ringing as if all the bells in the world had been set in motion, . . .\u201d); Peter and Jordan kiss each other (\u201c. . . frantically, violently, almost brutally, open-mouthed, . . .\u201d).<\/p>\n Later in the novel, Peter\u2019s flight in a Wellington bomber on a mission over Stuttgart ends with a crash landing in northern France. Peter and the Wellington\u2019s pilot, Beal, are taken in by Marie-Louise who works for the French Resistance. The chapters that follow are among my favorites and remind me, in some ways, of Flying Colours<\/em>, one of the Hornblower novels by C.S. Forester. In Forester\u2019s novel, the Royal Navy\u2019s Captain Horatio Hornblower is in France with wounded fellow officer, Lieutenant Bush, and they are hiding from Napoleon\u2019s troops\u2014just as in McMichael\u2019s novel, RAF Flight Lieutenant Peter Waring and wounded fellow officer, Squadron Leader Beal, are hiding from the Nazis. Both heroes find themselves houseguests of beautiful women: Marie in Hornblower\u2019s case, and in Waring\u2019s case, her name is Marie-Louise. The similarities soon end, but the comparison is interesting and entertaining, as is McMichael\u2019s entire novel, from start to end: Rich in detail, Shadows in a Photograph<\/em> by David McMichael is a fascinating and moving novel that embraces the gamut of emotions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The novel Shadows in a Photograph by David McMichael (Austin Macauley Publishers, 2016) describes life from the viewpoint of Peter Waring. The story begins not too long after the Great War ends and focuses at first on Peter\u2019s boyhood exile … Continue reading