Mike Lewis's Blog: The journey from Dinas Mountain in west Wales to Last Stand Hill, in Montana

"WHAT'S it all about" is that famous line spoken by Michael Caine in 'Alfie' the celebrated 1966 film set in Swinging London made all the more memorable by Cilla Black's moving and evocative title track of the same name, plus the somewhat weird and downbeat ending on Embankment.

There were occasional times during my now-distant days in London where I'd find myself wandering along that same river path, peering down into the Thames' dark, swirling waters like countless other dawdlers before me and inevitably asking myself: "What is it all about?"

As publication of 'If God Will Spare My Life...' draws near this is a question I am increasingly having to field as word slowly spreads about the debut novel I have pieced together over the last couple of years or so.

I guess a clue lies in the title. Let me tell you now, John Wayne versus the 'Injuns' it most certainly ain't...

So what is it all about?

That is surprisingly difficult to answer. In basic terms IGWSML charts the trials and tribulations of a west Wales farmer's son who emigrates to Canada and then on to the United States in 1871, where he enlists in the US Seventh Cavalry under Lieut-Col George Armstrong Custer the following year.

The book opens in 1904, when readers accompany Arthur Nicholas, a young Welsh solicitor, in his attempts to trace William James, heir apparent to a large farm near Fishguard. Trouble is, no-one in the locality have heard neither hide nor hair of James since he left abruptly for Canada over thirty years previously.

Arthur's seemingly hopeless quest is interspersed with the recollections of James himself, telling his story in the first person. Yet the protagonist is not some west Wales farmer’s son idly daydreaming while toiling on the land; he is a trooper in Custer’s Seventh on the way towards their annihilation at Little Bighorn.

While I'm not naive enough to think readers and reviewers will not focus on the 'Custer's Last Stand' angle - after all, were it not for Will James's participation in the battle I wouldn't have penned this novel - I do not regard IGWSML as a 'Custer book'.

I regard it more as a story about someone trying to come to terms with who he is and where he's come from while asking the fundamental question: ‘Do the things I have been through have to shape me’?

'Am I the sum total of everything - good or bad - that I have ever experienced or do I have the option to be someone else?'

“Yet the protagonist is not some west Wales farmer’s son idly daydreaming while toiling on the land; he is a trooper in Custer’s Seventh on the way towards their annihilation.

One of the few people to read the finished manuscript told me subsequently that readers would have widely differing opinions on what transpires - and what it all means.

"They'll interpret this in ways you'd never have considered in all your wildest dreams," he forecast.

Time will tell, I guess...

My own take, for what it's worth, is that IGWSML is about the type of people - be they Native Americans, or impoverished Welsh and Irish immigrants struggling to survive on the hostile American frontier of the 1870s where dangers surround them at every turn, often coming from the most unexpected directions.

Their lives are harsh and bleak; each day represents a new struggle, yet despite the difficulties and challenges faced, they do not give in nor surrender when faced with overwhelming odds.

They continue to stand defiant in the face of almost overwhelming adversity.

That's my take, anyway...

ends

(from the Western Telegraph 31/01/21)

A FORMER newspaper reporter is poised to publish his debut novel based on a story he covered on his old north Pembrokeshire beat.

Mike Lewis was based in Fishguard when he learnt of William James, a Dinas Cross farmer’s son who emigrated to the United States and fought at the Battle of the Little Bighorn when 210 soldiers were massacred by thousands of Native Americans on June 25, 1876.

“BBC Wales did a documentary on James in 2002,” recalled Mike, who comes from Aberporth, near Cardigan. “I then wrote a follow-up article after managing to locate living relatives.

“Back in north Pembrokeshire a few years later I found myself again driving past James’s old childhood home – it got me thinking what kind of person he was and why exchange west Wales farming life to serve as a soldier on the American frontier?

“I subsequently stumbled across a previously-unknown batch of letters James dispatched to his younger brother – I’d also hoped to find a photo of the bloke himself, but although he sent one home I have not yet managed to locate it.”

The long-lost letters form the framework of ‘If God Will Spare My Life…’ to be published by Staffordshire-based Victorina Press in June. A work of fiction, it is based on true events.

“Research took years; the writing only a few months,” said Mike. “I found it a unique, if unsettling, experience.

“At one point I was bashing out 2,000 words a day. It sounds bonkers, but it was as if someone was standing alongside me dictating.

“IGWSML relates a brutal schooling in the Welsh Not era, a chain of family tragedy, the 1871 Great Fire of Chicago, the violent Reconstruction era in the Deep South when the Ku Klux Khan ran rampant and, latterly, Custer’s Last Stand.”

Set in a dual narrative, the book follows young solicitor Arthur Nicholas in his quest to trace James – heir to a family farm near Fishguard - almost thirty years after his disappearance. Nicholas’s search is interspersed by James reflecting on his grim past in the first person.

As the Seventh approach their Armageddon, James belatedly comes to realise he is as much a fugitive as the Indians he is pursuing – yet the one thing a man can never escape is himself...

“I don’t regard IGWSML as a Custer book,” said Mike. “I see it more as a story about someone trying to come to terms with who he is while asking the fundamental question: ‘Do the things I have been through have to shape me’?

“Yet the protagonist is not some west Wales farmer’s son idly daydreaming while toiling on the land; he is a trooper in Custer’s Seventh on the way towards their annihilation.

“I have tried to be as authentic as possible, while seeking to convey a feeling of mounting dread.

“James can sense something terrible is coming even if his superiors cannot.”

‘If God Will Spare My Life…’ is available on pre-order from Victorina Press – www.victorinapress.com

THE freezing Montana rain could have come straight from Wales. Somewhere over on the ridge to our left a coyote howled. As we made our tentative way down Deep Ravine Trail from Custer Ridge it appeared we had the Little Bighorn battlefield all to ourselves.

On we walked, pausing occasionally to examine the white marble markers scattered along the path, grim and silent reminders of where men had died almost 150 years before. We spoke little. These mute hills somehow do not invite much discourse. Like generations of sombre visitors who had tramped this trail before, we were lost in our own thoughts.

And always at the back of our minds was the stark realisation that we were nearing the probable location where the only Welshman to fight here on June 25, 1876 is thought to have met his gruesome fate. Having followed William Batine James's trail several thousands of miles from our native Wales we were now finally nearing journey's end.

Casting an eye around the rolling hills where US troops and Native Americans became embroiled in deadly conflict all those years ago, their resemblance to the brooding Preseli Mountains of Pembrokeshire was glaringly apparent.

As James prepared for battle on that scorching June day did this Pembrokeshire man of war survey his surroundings and find himself momentarily drawn to thoughts of home?

I first became aware of William Batine James – “Yr Unig Cymro” (The Lone Welshman) – when BBC Wales screened a documentary on him - Little Big Welshman - in 2002.

Following up on the programme, I managed – in my role of local newspaper reporter - to trace James's great-great-grandnephew, an elderly gentleman living just a few miles from James's home village of Dinas, near Fishguard, and subsequently wrote an article on him and his wife for the County Echo as well as the Welsh Mirror.

On returning to work for the County Echo in Fishguard in 2014 and driving past Pencwnc Farm in Dinas (where James was born and raised) every morning, I found myself once more drawn to his story.

What kind of person was he? What drove him to leave home, emigrate and ultimately enlist in the Seventh Cavalry? More importantly could I find a photo of this lost soldier – the only sergeant who died that day of whom a verifiable photo has not been traced?

Unlike the BBC Wales team 12 years previously I now had the priceless advantage of having online access to the excellent Pembrokeshire Archives, at Prendergast, near Haverfordwest, not all that far from Dinas.

Here I found a bundle of letters William James sent home to his younger brother, John Clement James, in the years prior to the battle. In his final letter – written at Opelika, Alabama, on April 21, 1875 – James enclosed his carte de visite which, alas, was not among the collection.

From a military viewpoint, the letters are a disappointment: apart from two date-marked 'Ft A Lincoln' there is no clue that the writer was serving in the US Army as – for reasons over which we can only speculate – James carefully concealed his enlistment from his family.

But what these five letters do provide is a very human side to the life of a frontier soldier. James, like up to 40 per cent of the men in the Seventh, was a newly-arrived immigrant and, while he did not encounter the language barrier confronting so many of his fellow troopers from non-English-speaking European countries, the loneliness he was experiencing comes across as real and heartfelt.

So who exactly was William James? That is the question this book will seek to answer.

As readers saddle up on a journey that will lead them to Canada, Chicago, the American Deep South and, finally, the northern Great Plains, they will have a companion on the odyssey that took 'that strange wild boy from Dinas Mountain' in north Pembrokeshire all the way to Last Stand Hill in Montana – Sgt James himself, relating his story in his own words.

While what he recounts is my own interpretation and theories of the experiences he encountered and the personalities he met, the essential chronicle of events portrayed is real as indeed are most of the characters he meets along the way – some names and places have been changed in order to protect the innocent and, perhaps, the not-so innocent....

The Little Big Horn rain was coming down harder as we arrived at Deep Ravine, noting the grim irony of the 'Trail Ends Here' sign. Deep Ravine is a lonely, even sinister spot. It is not a place where battlefield visitors are inclined to linger.

Having unfurled the Red Dragon and taken a few shots of that brooding gully, there was one last task left to complete.

We had visited Pencnwc Farm in Dinas just before flying out – our purpose: to gather up a small bag of Pembrokeshire soil.

Now, at Deep Ravine, having followed William James's trail all the way from the west Wales village where he was born, it seemed fitting to cast the soil into the ravine where this son of Pembrokeshire apparently breathed his last.

Or so battlefield historians tell us, anyway...

With that done, we stood there briefly in sorrowful contemplation not just for James, but for all the others lost that day on both sides and – for the Native Americans – the beginning of the end of a whole way of life.

And the missing photo of William James? As of writing it continues to defy all efforts to trace it, yet – like my kindred spirit young Arthur Nicholas - I remain dedicated to the pursuit, secure in the knowledge that the object of my quest lies out there somewhere...

Ymlaen!


Mike Lewis, February 2021