I currently live in Valencia on the east coast of Spain. Among my friends, I count a few members of the yacht-building community, an international crowd that comes and goes on a seasonal basis. It was from one of them—Raymond Villeneuve—that I received, in June 2011, Private Fleischer’s journal, which became the basis for my forthcoming book, A Red Sun Also Rises.
Villeneuve had just returned from a visit to his family in Vers-sur-Selles, some four miles southwest of Amiens. We met for a beer, and without preamble, he said: "In one of your novels, you make a passing reference to the island of Koluwai in the South Pacific. Why did you choose that particular place?"
"In remembrance of my Great Uncle James Leigh," I replied. "He was a missionary back in the 1920s. He died there."
"Of what?"
I shrugged. “The records don't say. I suppose that’s why he fascinates me. There’s a mystery surrounding him."
My friend gave a grunt, then seemed to change the subject: "A chateau once stood on the land where my family lives. It was destroyed during the First World War. Five years ago, we cleared away what remained of its foundations in order to expand our vineyards, and found in the rubble a rusty metal box. This was inside it."
He handed me a small package—something wrapped in browning waxed paper with an elastic band around it. I pulled it open and found a leather-bound notebook inside. Its delicate, damp-stained and slightly crumbling pages were filled with cramped, almost illegible handwriting.
"As you can see, it is written in English by a man named Aiden Fleischer," he said. "I have read a little of it, and it seems to be your sort of thing. I thought you might like to borrow it. It also mentions Koluwai, and a missionary who went there."
I could get little else out of him regarded the book—the handwriting was so bad that he’d given up reading it—so I thanked him, took it home, and, over the next few days, struggled through it.
A Red Sun Also Rises is adapted from that journal. "Adapted" because its author’s archaic and long-winded style of writing would be entirely unsuitable for a modern audience, and so required extensive revision. I also excised a great deal of fairly dull material—lists and measurements, extensive notes on flora and fauna, and so forth.
Is it a true story? I don't know. But I can tell you this: the parish records in the little town of Theaston Vale, in Hampshire, England, confirm that a man named Gregory James Mortimer Fleischer was the Anglican priest there from June 1868 to September 1883. He had a son, Aiden Mortimer Fleischer, born in 1863, who took his vows in 1882 and replaced his father as parish priest the following year before resigning the post in 1887.
Aiden next shows up in the archives of the London Missionary Society, where he trained during 1888 before being posted to Papua New Guinea. He was 25 years old when he left Britain. I have found no further traces of him.
However, a Private A. M. Fleischer registered with the 34th Division of the British Army on 14th February 1916, giving his birthdate as 22nd November 1891. He was reported killed, aged 25, during the Battle of the Somme, on 21st July 1916.
I have not located any record confirming the birthdate given by Private Fleischer, nor any other documents pertaining to him.
A Red Sun Also Rises will be published by PYR in 2012.
