No Man’s Land. Simon Tolkien

       Chapter Thirteen

      

       Chapter Fourteen

      

       Chapter Fifteen

      

       Chapter Sixteen

      

       Part Four : Call to Arms

      

       Chapter Seventeen

      

       Chapter Eighteen

      

       Chapter Nineteen

      

       Chapter Twenty: November 1915

      

       Part Five : The Somme

      

       Chapter Twenty-One: May 1916

      

       Chapter Twenty-Two

      

       Chapter Twenty-Three

      

       Chapter Twenty-Four

      

       Chapter Twenty-Five

      

       Chapter Twenty-Six

      

       Chapter Twenty-Seven

      

       Chapter Twenty-Eight

      

       Chapter Twenty-Nine

      

       Chapter Thirty

      

       Part Six : The Parting of the Ways

      

       Chapter Thirty-One

      

       Chapter Thirty-Two

      

       Chapter Thirty-Three

      

       Chapter Thirty-Four

      

       Chapter Thirty-Five

      

       Chapter Thirty-Six

      

       Chapter Thirty-Seven

      

       Part Seven : Ghosts

      

       Chapter Thirty-Eight: February 1919

      

       Chapter Thirty-Nine

      

       Chapter Forty

      

       Chapter Forty-One

      

       Chapter Forty-Two

      

       Chapter Forty-Three

      

       Chapter Forty-Four: 10–11 November 1919

      

       Acknowledgements

      

       About the Author

      

       Also by Simon Tolkien

      

       About the Publisher

       Part One

       CHILDHOOD

      ‘I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.’

      Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents, 1929

       Chapter One

       Islington, London, 1900

      The first world Adam knew was the street. It came to him through his senses without mental dilution, filling up his head with sounds and smells and images that he couldn’t begin to unravel. Lying in bed at night with his eyes closed he could see Punch and Judy bludgeoning each other with rolling pins, just as if they were right there in front of him. Down they went and up they came, again and again: gluttons for punishment. He knew that Benson, the rag-and-bone man with the blue scar across his chin, was pulling the strings behind the tattered red curtain but that didn’t make the garishly painted puppets any less real. Just thinking about them made him laugh until his insides hurt,