Cross-country Travel in Fiction

Chase, quest, military campaign; suddenly you’re an expert in cross-country travel in fiction.

I write fantasy. With travel. No cars, no planes, not even a bicycle. No dragons, unicorns, pegasi or giant eagles, either. My characters need to get somewhere, they have to walk or ride a horse. Don’t get me started with wagons, especially with ox teams.

A Mis-spent Youth

Role-playing games and table-top war games fueled my adolescence. Questions such as ‘how do you get a Napoleonic army from Leipzig to Moscow?’ were common. How far and how fast can you force-march a column of infantry? What about cavalry? Will they arrive in a fit state to fight?

Logistics interfere. What weight of supplies can you carry? How much feed does a horse need? Ten horses? Three hundred? Where do you get water? How much grain can you carry? Can you bake on the move? What can you forage along the way? What kind of rations can you preserve for a long journey?

You get into dull and detailed examinations of route planning. What determined the speed of Henry V’s campaign in France? The speed of the baggage train. And dysentery. What halted Richard I’s advance after Acre? Lack of water. And arguments between the princes about the best route to Jerusalem.

Just because it’s fiction…

“The Lord of the Rings is a movie about walking. What they do is they walk and they walk and they walk. And they eat some bread. And they walk some more.” (Greg Morton)

Tolkien had military experience. Which is why crossing the Dead Marshes in The Two Towers feels like we’re reading the journey in real time. The professor knew full well how long it takes to schlepp across bad terrain. Without a map, a tent, or decent boots, and carrying all your own gear; but not enough food.

Yet when the eagles turned up to rescue Frodo and Sam from the slopes of Mount Doom (spoiler for Return of the King), someone behind me in the cinema said “that’s convenient.”

Most readers happily skim over the practicalities of long-distance travel so they can get on with the story. Some readers pick apart every detail.

What’s an author to do? Skimp on the details and risk ridicule? Or research every boot lace and buckle? Even though most of that never makes it into the book?

Just because it’s fiction, you don’t get a free pass. Get the facts badly wrong and it will take the reader right out of the story. Richard Frankland guested at our writers group and critiqued a short story with the fact that Lancaster bombers didn’t fly from the South Coast of England. There’s always an expert who knows more than you.

Practical not Magical

I contributed to an author discussion last year in which a fictional character made a specific journey across Devon in the Napoleonic era.

The sustainable walking pace – not a forced march -for a fit soldier, lightly loaded, is about three miles an hour; four miles an hour if you push the pace in short bursts.

The direct route on modern paths between the four specific places in Devon is sixty-six miles. That’s twenty-two hours walking in good boots, carrying little to nothing. On level ground. In dry, temperate weather. Which don’t exist in Devon. Add in rest breaks, sleep, food. Realistically three to four days travel, all being well.

For comparison, the stage coach on the main routes might manage five miles an hour for ten hours a day with changes of horses at coaching inns in the towns.

Certainly mounted soldiers can travel faster for short periods, but the average speed is within a couple of miles an hour of a fit human on foot.

But there are few cross-country roads at this time, even fewer made-up surfaces. Muddy, boggy drover’s paths and farm tracks can hinder as much as help. Cross-country often means just that.

The Flat Earth Society

Devon is not flat. A 10% uphill incline halves your speed. Downhill walking involves braking forces, especially if you’re loaded with gear. You don’t make up as much time as you think you should going downhill.

If the character tries to avoid people, that rules out stage coach routes or drovers’ paths and stopping at the towns. The route is way less direct. How many fields, hedgerows, woodland, rivers and streams must he cross?

With no stops at towns or villages, he’s got to find food and water on the hoof or carry it with him. Every pound of kit carried slows the pace.

The wrong type of clothing

Weather makes a big difference. Rain and mud slow the pace further. Hot and cold conditions break down super-fit soldiers every season in modern exercises across Salisbury plain, Brecon, and our very own Dartmoor. Unpredictable British weather can include all four seasons in one day. Just saying.

According to the season, available daylight limits your walking hours. Summer good, winter bad. Do not attempt cross-country hiking in the pitch black with no paths. Or the fog we get in Devon. Tried that.

If you’re camping out, you need some light to setup, make a fire (or be very miserable overnight), eat and try to sleep without dying of exposure. The Scots Highlanders in the 1745 rebellion travelled extremely light and lived off the land, but even that tough breed turned up to battles cold, tired and hungry.

I’ve walked the coastal path out of Lynton and Lynmouth more than once back when I was fit; it wiggles and winds, up and down, over stiles. Modern footbridges make gullies and streams passable. Cold, rain and fog got me every time. I never made the distance I wanted. I always had a plan B and a return route planned out.

Hazards of the Day

Back to nineteenth century England. How do you navigate with no GPS, no ordnance survey maps and very few signs except on the main routes? Even if you’re familiar with the area and have directions, you can get lost and end up on long roundabout diversions (did that myself in the Lake District).

Another problem for our fictional character on his covert journey; people. Beware large estates where the grounds keepers are likely to shoot trespassers as poachers and never mind the questions. Lone travellers sneaking around the countryside in 1812 without a good excuse might also get picked up by the constables for vagrancy, or by military patrols on suspicion of spying for the French. Paranoia along the South Coast was rife during the Napoleonic wars. Suspected deserters from the army and navy also fared badly. In times with no photo-ID or central records, proving your identity was not so easy.

Rural England at that time could be very unkind to strangers. Fights, feuds and robberies were more common than you’d expect. There’s no official police force for decades yet. Military discipline and outback vigilantism substituted for the thin veneer of law and order in the towns.

“Better not step on that snake.” (The Ghost and the Vipers)

If all that isn’t enough, you locale might be populated by wild boar, wolves, or bears. Perhaps there are mountain lions, panthers, hippos, or crocagators. This is before we step into our fantasy setting populated with all manner of hostile wildlife. Orcs, trolls, wargs, shape-shifters and whatever you call that thing with the tentacles in the lake outside Moria.

This is why Harry Potter teleports or uses the chimney network whenever he can. It’s quicker and safer than walking.