Apr 3, 2023 6:13 am
Ideology: Raised by devout Anglican parents, Christopher found their religious traditions overbearing and exhausting from an early age but still followed the family faith. This faith began to waiver as he watched first his mother, then his father both succumb to illness… What little faith in a higher power was destroyed by he witnessed during the war, men hacking each other to pieces with bayonets, blasting each others limbs off, and the ultimate atrocity, the horrors of the gas…
Christopher now refuses to believe in any benevolent higher power in the universe and resents the idea of any grander fate or personal destiny.
Significant Person: Eva Neumann, a young German woman living on the border between Luxembourg and Germany who took pity on a wounded Christopher after finding unconscious on the banks of the Rhine River. At great risk, she hid him from the Imperial German Army and nursed him back to health from the injury that cost him his right eye. Separated from his unit, Christopher was forced to remain in hiding in her home, waiting for an opportunity to escape German territory and rejoin the Allies. An avid reader and collector of books, she read to him in German and slowly taught him the language. As weeks turned to months, distrust turned to understanding, then affection, then finally love.
This was the first time in his adult life that Christopher allowed himself to feel warmth and see the goodness in another human being. As the year 1918 wore on and the German Army became more desperate, it became evident that the time to chart an escape was rapidly approaching. Knowing that they could not hide together forever and that he could not take Eva with him, Christopher made the difficult decision to go through with his retreat back to Allied territory. He promised he would return for her, she promised she would wait for him. They would start a new life together.
Before their tearful farewell, he took a photo of her. This photo would become his most cherished possession- he keeps it in a silver locket attached to the grip of his Webley Mk. VI top-break revolver.
Christopher managed to reunite with the Allies, and by the winter of 1918 it was clear the war was nearing it’s end, but he was unable to gain clearance to return to Rhineland until the fall of 1919. Alas, when he finally returned to his lover’s home, he did not find her. There were not notes or indications of what might’ve happened to her, no neighbors reported seeing her, it was as if she’d disappeared from the face of the earth. The only trace of her he has left is her photo.
Why: Unable to forget the life he planned to live with Eva, and unable to return to the life he led back in England before the war, Christopher now finds himself a man without a home.
Location: The Rhineland home he shared with Eva during his months in hiding- Christopher remembers every detail, every nook, every book, every moment of his time in hiding. He often retreats to it during his quiet moments or when he needs to block out a painful memory or reorganize his thoughts.
Trait: Christopher’s greatest trait is his perceptiveness. As a child, his father taught him to shoot. As a man of devout faith, his Father never missed the opportunity to entwine religious teachings into daily life lessons, and while instructing Christopher on how to breath and aim, he advised him to ‘take a breath, stop time and see through the eyes of God’.
Though he has long abandoned his fear of God, Christopher took the mantra to heart and sought to hone his observantness and learn to identify and aim for the heart of anything before him- this skill led him to success behind a camera and also contributed to him becoming a keen marksman.
Christopher now refuses to believe in any benevolent higher power in the universe and resents the idea of any grander fate or personal destiny.
Significant Person: Eva Neumann, a young German woman living on the border between Luxembourg and Germany who took pity on a wounded Christopher after finding unconscious on the banks of the Rhine River. At great risk, she hid him from the Imperial German Army and nursed him back to health from the injury that cost him his right eye. Separated from his unit, Christopher was forced to remain in hiding in her home, waiting for an opportunity to escape German territory and rejoin the Allies. An avid reader and collector of books, she read to him in German and slowly taught him the language. As weeks turned to months, distrust turned to understanding, then affection, then finally love.
This was the first time in his adult life that Christopher allowed himself to feel warmth and see the goodness in another human being. As the year 1918 wore on and the German Army became more desperate, it became evident that the time to chart an escape was rapidly approaching. Knowing that they could not hide together forever and that he could not take Eva with him, Christopher made the difficult decision to go through with his retreat back to Allied territory. He promised he would return for her, she promised she would wait for him. They would start a new life together.
Before their tearful farewell, he took a photo of her. This photo would become his most cherished possession- he keeps it in a silver locket attached to the grip of his Webley Mk. VI top-break revolver.
Christopher managed to reunite with the Allies, and by the winter of 1918 it was clear the war was nearing it’s end, but he was unable to gain clearance to return to Rhineland until the fall of 1919. Alas, when he finally returned to his lover’s home, he did not find her. There were not notes or indications of what might’ve happened to her, no neighbors reported seeing her, it was as if she’d disappeared from the face of the earth. The only trace of her he has left is her photo.
Why: Unable to forget the life he planned to live with Eva, and unable to return to the life he led back in England before the war, Christopher now finds himself a man without a home.
Location: The Rhineland home he shared with Eva during his months in hiding- Christopher remembers every detail, every nook, every book, every moment of his time in hiding. He often retreats to it during his quiet moments or when he needs to block out a painful memory or reorganize his thoughts.
Trait: Christopher’s greatest trait is his perceptiveness. As a child, his father taught him to shoot. As a man of devout faith, his Father never missed the opportunity to entwine religious teachings into daily life lessons, and while instructing Christopher on how to breath and aim, he advised him to ‘take a breath, stop time and see through the eyes of God’.
Though he has long abandoned his fear of God, Christopher took the mantra to heart and sought to hone his observantness and learn to identify and aim for the heart of anything before him- this skill led him to success behind a camera and also contributed to him becoming a keen marksman.
