Task: Story Composition
Input (English): Fact1: reports are censored by editor of newspaper, Fact2: Redgrave sets off on speaking tour around country under slogan Britain Awake, Fact3: countrymen appear to be way content to go about daily business as normal, Fact4: ship carrying them to new life in America foundered off-shore in violent storm, Fact5: ship 's captain appears to be only ghost aware
Output (English): During the late 1930s, David Charleston Redgrave is an ambitious campaigning newspaper journalist, a fierce opponent of fascism and the British policy of appeasement. He wishes to alert his readers to the dangers of German rearmament and the folly of ignoring what is going on in Europe, but the reports he submits are censored by the editor of his newspaper. He subsequently quits his job and sets off on a speaking tour around the country under the slogan Britain, Awake! The lack of interest and response indicates that Britain is happy to keep slumbering. The final straw comes when Charleston is at the cinema, and the newsreel feature comes on the screen detailing the German occupation of the Sudetenland. The audience show themselves completely uninterested in the newsreel, taking the opportunity to chat among themselves or go in search of refreshments. In despair at the way his countrymen seem totally oblivious to the evermore impending doom which is about to engulf them, and appear to be content to go about their daily business as normal while all the time sleepwalking towards disaster, he decides to turn his back on Britain and find a farflung location where he can withdraw from the world and all its contemporary woes. He crosses the Atlantic, and finds exactly what he is looking for when he successfully lands a job as a lone lighthousekeeper on Lake Michigan, which will provide him with the solitude he craves. The lighthouse rock carries a commemorative tablet, listing the names of a group of immigrants from Europe who perished 90 years earlier when the ship carrying them to a new life in America foundered offshore in a violent storm. As weeks turn into months in his selfimposed isolation, Charleston becomes fixated on the names on the tablet, and begins to experience ghostly visions of the lost souls, who start to relate to him their sad stories of sorrow, escape and unfulfilled dreams, in what seems an uncanny parallel to Charlestons own situation. The ships captain Stuart Finlay Currie, who appears to be the only ghost aware that he is dead and that it is no longer 1850, acts as mediator between Charleston and the other spirits as they tell their tales. Charleston discovers the story of protofeminist Ellen Mullen, repeatedly persecuted and imprisoned for her progressive views, and becomes particularly emotionally involved with the Kurtz family, progressive medical man Stefan Frederick Valk and his sad daughter Melanie Palmer, who seems to harbour a strange ghostly attraction towards Charleston, which he reciprocates. Charlestons lonely existence is broken by the arrival of an old colleague Streeter Mason, who is worried about him after finding out from Charlestons employers that his pay cheques have not been cashed for many months. Streeter is nonplussed and not a little concerned as he starts to realise Charlestons mental state. Stuart meanwhile becomes exasperated by the way in which Charlestons imagination is forcing the others into unrealistic behaviour. Charleston agrees to let them have more freedom of action, but then finds them all starting to question where they are and what time they are in. He finally allows Melanie to read the tablet describing their deaths, and tells them all that the civilisation they knew is coming to an imminent end, and he has withdrawn to avoid being witness to its demise. He adds that now he has told them the truth, as figments of his imagination they no longer need to appear to him. To his consternation, they dont disappear. Stefan confronts him sternly, pointing out that running away is cowardly and that it is always better to stand up and fight for what is good and right, regardless of the consequences. Moreover, none of the spirits have any intention of leaving him until he faces up to what he has to do. Finally convinced, Charleston realises he must return to Europe and carry on his fight for truth and justice against the evil which threatens the continent.