Tuesdays are the days I
showcase my work on this blog. Today I’d like to present the opening of my novel,
The Lonely War.
Published by Dreamspinner Press
Description:
Like most war novels, The Lonely War
envelops all that is unique to war, the horror of battle, overcoming fear, the
cruelty of soldiers, the loyalty and camaraderie of men caught in a desperate
situation. Yet, it stands alone in two important ways. First, it is a
passionate story about a tender love developing between an officer and an
enlisted man, revealing a rare and dignified portrait of a couple struggling to
satisfy desire within the confines of the military code of conduct. Even more
importantly however, it describes the heart-wrenching measures of how much one
man will sacrifice to save the life and reputation of the man he loves.
Excerpt:
PART I
The Pilgrim
It has been said that “Common souls pay
with what they do, nobler souls with that which they are. And why? Because a
profound nature awakens in us by their actions and words, by their very looks
and manners.
—Unknown
March 20, 1941
0800 hours
In the spring of 1941, the Japanese
army surged across the border from China to extend
their bloody campaign to all of Southeast Asia. As war crept south, the French,
English, and Americans scattered throughout Indochina hastened to Saigon, where
they boarded ocean liners bound for their homelands. Meanwhile, the Japanese
army massed on the outskirts of the city, poised for another victorious
assault. The city held its breath.
Andrew Waters pursued his father
across a bustling wharf, still wearing his boarding school uniform and
clutching a bamboo flute. The ship that loomed before him was a floating
city—mammoth, with numerous passenger decks and topped by two massive stacks
that muddied the sky with exhaust. It had been berthed at the inland port on a
tributary of the Mekong for a full week, but Andrew saw the crew now scurrying
to get underway.
The wharf trembled slightly, and he
heard the rat-tat-tat of gunfire over the sirens blaring from the center of the
city.
Andrew’s father sported a
tussore-silk suit of superlative cut and a Panama hat tilted so the brim hid
his right eye. His tall figure marched purposefully towards the black-and-white
behemoth, and his normally long gait lengthened with noticeable desperation.
Andrew, who was nearly eighteen,
paused and panted from an acute nervy rush. He searched the sky for planes.
They were still beyond his field of vision, but the drone of bombers echoed
through the cloud cover. The rumble of explosions grew loud, and the air
carried the faint stench of sulfur.
He hurried on, jostling through a
mélange of beings—Caucasians dressed in fine western clothes (like his father),
rich Chinese in their silks, merchants in long-sleeved jackets, coolies wearing
only tattered shorts. Voices all around him shouted while the harsh twang of a
military band playing “Auld Lang Syne” vaulted above that unbridled confusion
of humanity.
Directly behind him trotted an aged
wisp of a monk, who wore the traditional orange robes and held a string of
wooden prayer beads. Each bead was the size of a marble and had the chalky gray
coloring of Mekong silt. The monk’s thumb deliberately ticked past each bead,
one after another, like a timer counting down the seconds. Behind the monk came
the porters carrying four steamer trunks.
At the gangway, Andrew’s father told
him to quickly make his goodbye then sprinted up the ramp with the porters in
tow.
Surrounded in a press of bodies, the
youth reverently embraced the monk. The old man wrapped his arms around Andrew
and drew him nearer. The monk’s breath tickled his neck, which helped to
dissolves his anxieties.
Using the native tongue of South
China, he whispered, “Master, I’ll come home as soon as I can.”
The old monk’s face contracted, as
if Andrew had posed a difficult question.
“Andrew, war and time will whisk
away everything that you love. This is our farewell.”
The youth wiped away a tear that
broke free from his almond-shaped eyes and slid down his amber-colored cheek.
“Master, I will strive to apply
everything you have taught me.”
“No, Andrew. You will forget my
lessons. Such is the nature of youth. But remember this—since you are American
by birth, they will surely draft you. So, on the battlefield, resist the hate
that is born from fear. Nurture only love in your heart, Andrew. To love all
beings is Buddha-like and transcends us from the world of pain, for love is the
highest manifestation of life. To experience love’s full bounty is life’s only
purpose, so tread the moral path before you and sacrifice yourself to love. All
else is folly, a dream of the ego.”
Baffled, Andrew replied, “Master, I
do not understand about sacrificing myself to love.”
The old monk’s eyes opened wide and
his lips spread into a grin.
“Meditate on what I have said.
Understanding will come when you are ready.” He methodically bundled his string
of beads into a ball roughly the size and shape of a monkey’s skull and forced
them into Andrew’s left pants pocket. “Keep these beads to remind yourself of
our time together.”
The pressure against Andrew’s thigh
felt awkward, and before the monk pulled away, Andrew became distracted,
thinking of how fortunate this man was to be wise and compassionate in the
midst of the impending carnage. He realized it took impeccable courage to
maintain one’s morality during perilous times, courage that he himself did not
possess.
He had always assumed he would live
a quiet, studious and spiritual life under this old monk’s guardianship, and
eventually become the old man who stood before him. That image was shattered
when war turned the world on its head. Now, all Andrew could think about was
getting on that ship and sailing to safety, if such a thing existed.
The ship’s whistle cut the air, long
and terrible and loud enough to be heard throughout the city. The monk pressed
his hands together in front of his forehead and bowed, silently, finally.
Another blast from the ship’s
whistle sent Andrew running up the gangway, leaving the earthy world of South
China behind.
He joined his father on the
first-class deck. Entombed in steel— heavy riveted plates of metal underfoot
that curved into walls—he jammed together with the other passengers at the
rail, peering down at the apprehensive faces. Their body heat added to the
stifling temperature. Sweat dribbled down his neck, and he had to gasp to get
enough air.
Lines fell away, and the gangway was
hauled aboard. Tugs pushed the ship into the middle of the channel and
withdrew, leaving the ship to the whim of the current.
Andrew stared straight down at the
dense, opaque surface of the river. It reflected the cloudy sky, making the
water seem gray rather than the usual brown, yellowish streaks of oil running
with the current. The flat moving surface seemed strangely alive, carrying him
along, muscling him downstream, as if it were an overwhelming force whose
motives he could only guess at.
On the dock, Asian women held their
infants over their heads for a last look. Handkerchiefs waved. The band played
on.
He saw the first planes against the
darkening sky, droning above the city. Explosions grew even louder, and from
his perch on the first-class deck, he saw sections of the city erupting. He
turned northeast towards his boarding school. Flames. That entire section of the
city was engulfed in fire, as if hell had opened its mouth to swallow it whole.
“Clifford,” he whispered.
A searing stab of regret lodged in
his chest. He had been forced to abandon the object of his adolescent love, and
he imagined himself dashing through the chaotic streets to reach the boarding
school. There was still time, he thought. They could disappear into the forest.
They could live on, together. He wanted to perform that fatal act of love, but
he wondered if he could really muster the courage to defy his father.
Reluctantly—at least, it felt that
way to him—he climbed onto the railing to dive overboard, because he realized
the love he shared with Clifford wasn’t a trifling adolescent crush at all but
rather a deep and consuming love. A love that had somehow been lost in the joys
of youth like water in dry sand, and was only now realized.
His father pulled him back, forcing
him to stay and suffer what felt like an unquenchable loss. Locked in his
father’s embrace, he entered a narrow canyon of desolation, knowing the days
and hours and minutes ahead would be heartbreaking, and that he might not be
strong enough to endure it.
The ship’s siren sounded three
blasts for its farewell salute. The engines throbbed, and propellers chewed the
river. The noise swelled to a din like the end of the world.
The passengers on deck could no
longer hide their sorrow. Everyone wept, not only those people parting but the
onlookers as well. Even the dockhands and porters shed tears.
The ship traveled downstream as the
military band played “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
To Andrew, the orange-robed figure
crushed within the throng on the dock seemed at odds with the fires raging
across the city. He now fully understood the monk’s words—that war would steal
everything he loved, that a way of life, their way of life, had
perished. Pain flooded his whole being, like that of a baby prematurely ripped
from its protective womb.
He pulled away from his father’s
embrace and staggered farther down the deck to cry without being seen. He
positioned himself at the rail, one arm folded around a steel support beam and
his face pressed against the hot metal.
People on the wharf seemed to hesitate, then regretfully
turned and scurried away. He watched the smudge of orange, scarcely visible and
standing at the edge of the pier, utterly still, quiescent, until the harbor
faded from view and the land disappeared as well, slowly swallowed beneath the
curve of the earth.
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