Pacing Myself

British troops on the road to Quatre Bras
An officer of the Royal Horse Artillery salutes the Duke of Wellington
(Source)

Though it was a short campaign, less than a week from start to the finale on the slopes of Mont St. Jean¹, I'm attempting to get a novel out of it. Obviously it won't stretch to the length of Tolstoy's War and Peace but I think there's enough material to make it a decent size book.

Thousands of books have been written about this campaign, I have ten new ones in my possession since the turn of the year, and have read many more. So why another one? Well, because I can and because I want to.

It was an interesting campaign and I mean to do justice to the men who fought there.

But I'm going to pace myself on this effort, I ain't getting any younger. To tell the truth, the last week or so has worn me out.

Not so much the drive down to Maryland, then the drive up to Antietam and a day spent traipsing the battlefield, nope. It was more the drive home the Friday before Mother's Day, then the drive up to New Hampshire on Saturday, then the drive back on Sunday. Some seven-hundred miles right there.

Back in my younger days we thought nothing of piling into the car then doing five hundred miles a day until we got to where we wanted to go. Often that trip was from Omaha down to Louisiana. Beauty of that was that none of it went through the New York metropolitan area.

But I noticed this past week that my butt was dragging, being back to work was fine, it was the getting up early and the staying up too late that did me in. I need to stop doing that.

Yesterday's post was an epic effort on my part, three pieces of research close to hand and two actual historic figures involved in the persons of Lt. Col. Robert Macara and Capt. Archibald Menzies of the 42nd Regiment of Foot, also known as the "Black Watch." My favorite regiment, that one is. Paraded with and partied with a few of the regiment's pipers back in the day.

Good times.

But in order to keep the quality of the writing up, I need to pace myself and not go all out charging in like some berserker. Nope, slow and steady will win this race.

I hope.

Anyhoo, I'm well rested from not doing a damned thing yesterday (Friday) so perhaps you'll get another episode this weekend.

Keep your fingers crossed and your powder dry.

Until tomorrow!

¹ The French call the battle by that name (Mont St. Jean) as it was the nearest village to the battlefield, the Germans La Belle Alliance for the name of the inn where Blücher met with Wellington after the battle. Wellington called it Waterloo in his after action report as that village is where his headquarters was and he thought the name easy enough to remember and pronounce in English.