Paint it Jack: A Historical Novel

Synopsis of the book:

Tired of his dead-end factory job, Will - a Durham lad - joins the army where he goes to fight in the “War on Terror”. He becomes a man able to save and take lives until one day his world falls apart. Broken and despairing he meets Jack, another lost soul, in the shadows of Old Portsmouth. Jack, a Scottish painter and once England’s most wanted man, also fought for freedom but his fight was many years ago. As the night passes they tell each other their stories: Jack’s tale of his role in the American War of Independence, and how he almost single-handedly brought it to an early end; Will’s of fighting for freedom in a world which soon forgets the fallen and fractured.

The historical fiction novel Paint it Jack is set in Scotland, England, the USA and France of the late 18th century, and Portsmouth, Afghanistan and Durham of the early 21st century; it is a story of hopes, heroes, fear, loss and redemption.

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Short extracts from the book

Chapter one:

It was early afternoon and I was in a city centre café, the type of place where shoppers waddle in with their plunder, and hope to be revived by coffee and cake, or for the truly adventurous something cooked. The summer had long faded and the customers’ clothes had run from the bright, the tropical, the revealing and the garish to the all-enveloping autumn shadows of grey, brown, and black. ...

Chapter ten:

There was silence as we both reflected on his words. Eventually I broke the quiet. “Some dead were honoured as their bodies passed through Wootton Bassett where the good people of Wiltshire expressed their solidarity, and showed compassion to the grieving relatives. There were no parades for me and the many who lived. I did not expect or want my return to be celebrated, what I did not anticipate was that I would be ostracised by people I had known all of my life. Of course, I realised that kids would mock me, but there is a vast difference between the appreciation that something may take place, and it actually happening. ...

Chapter twenty:

I sensed that Jack had perhaps never before told anyone his full story, there was too much effort in his recall, no well-formed phrases or familiar words. He took a deep breath before continuing. “Having shared my plan with Bancroft I was concerned that he would in turn share it with the authorities. To continue my attacks on the naval dockyards could be reckless. I changed my plan, my path now headed west from London through the grey-green frosted fields of the shire counties towards Bristol. With the passing of each day I further added to my long list of misdemeanours, I borrowed without the owners’ consent food, money and once a recalcitrant horse although the creature soon forcibly discarded me when it realised that I was terrified of it. ...