Thread: Tolkien Bio-pic
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Old 03-14-2019, 05:31 PM   #7
William Cloud Hicklin
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William Cloud Hicklin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.William Cloud Hicklin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.William Cloud Hicklin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
Tolkien wouldn't have worn very much in terms of gear: far less than a ranker. His khaki wool service uniform - with necktie(!) and a peaked cap: steel helmets wouldn't be authorized for officers for over a year. His revolver, on a lanyard around his neck. Possibly a whistle, although I doubt it as he wasn't a platoon leader. Pigeon cages and other gear would have been toted by ORs, but he might well have carried a Very (flare) gun himself. Probably an electric torch (flashlight).

Phones? Not hardly. Nobody was going to be laying phone lines across no-man's land (not that they'd last uncut out there anyway). And man-portable wireless sets, even Morse code, weren't yet a thing in 1916. Flares, semaphore flags, pigeons and runners: pretty much what Wellington had.

Although actually I don't believe Tolkien himself ever went over the top. John Garth or someone could correct me, but I believe his station was with battalion HQ in the forward trench line, and mostly concerned with receiving orders from Brigade via phone and wireless (which had to stay put). One of the major reasons both sides' offensives until 1918 might get into the enemy forward trench system but then peter out, was that once they went over the top higher echelons in their own trenches had no damn idea what was happening.

This is one reason why I keep emphasizing the extent to which the plot of the LR turns on people- especially Sauron - having to act on the basis of spotty, garbled and almost always stale information.
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The entire plot of The Lord of the Rings could be said to turn on what Sauron didn’t know, and when he didn’t know it.

Last edited by William Cloud Hicklin; 03-18-2019 at 09:24 AM.
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