rorkesdriftvc.com :: View topic - "W. Bellairs, Col."-Man of Mystery

Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 9:24 pm

The plot thickens and the game is afoot! I just acquired a 1902 copy of "Three Years War" by the well-known Boer general Christiaan Rudolph De Wet and there is an portrait of the same across from the frontispiece with a facsimile autograph of "C.R. De Wet" below it. Lo and behold, he didn't cross his "t" in the same way as this mystery script doesn't in "Natal"(it actually looks more like a lower case "h"). I believe now that the controversial final upper case "D" is, in fact a lower case "t" as is the first letter in the last word. It still doesn't make sense however. Sigh...

Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 10:37 pm

What about Dougal or Douglas Herbert?

M

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 12:54 pm

Mike, good suggestion, but my opinion is that the first letter is an upper case "C" rather than a "D". I suppose I should scan De Wet's signature as the time and place are pretty contemporary and I therefore shouldn't be surprised if the style is similar. His capital "C" is exactly the same except for the vertical upstroke embellishment (that is an upstroke, don't you think, Alan?). Whatever combination I try, I seem to keep returning to "Caverly", a not uncommon surname. Could it also have been a given name or is our signator a dyslexic and trying to spell 'Cavalry"? Why isn't the "stand-alone" middle letter (an "a"?) capitalized? Am I now seeing "War" in the middle? Herein lies madness!

Posted: Mon May 31, 2010 3:30 am

This little tome came up again in a recent thread and I looked closely at it once again-- particularly at that great enhancement of the handwriting on the cover done by Alan. Tonight I'm imagining "Durban" as the last word of the first handwritten line on the cover. Did the pen skip or simply run out of ink on the "belly" of the capital "D"? Is the stroke reversed from that of the "D" in Durban below? There's a pretty obviously a "b", then possibly an "a" and then an undecipherable final letter there at the end. Could that last letter be an "n" rendered with a lot of flash? And I can see "at" for the middle word (without a cross on the "t", something the writer left out on "Natal" as well). Knowing that "Caverly" was a surname common in that area-- it was a Sgt. Caverly who figured in the denouement of Mome Gorge-- I'm leaning towards "Caverly at Durban Durban-Natal 28/4/'79". Anyone else able to blur their eyes enough to see that? Possibly with eyesight lubricated somewhat with Squareface Vision Enhancer?