INTRODUCING MY NEWEST NOVEL...THE MONUMENT AVAILABLE ON AMAZON OCTOBER 31st...

INTRODUCING MY NEWEST NOVEL...THE MONUMENT AVAILABLE ON

AMAZON OCTOBER 31st...

Celebrating the 102nd anniversary of my father, Richard C. Carbee's, birth. Yes, I am the offspring of a Halloween Baby...you never would have guessed?

I have led a fortunate life for the most part. My parents were college educated and I was brought up amidst books. My small home town had an active library and still today it is a leader among Iowa town libraries.

Entirely by accident I ended up in the freshman English class of Dr. Arthur Kistner, who was quite unorthodox in his teaching methods, but instilled in his students a love of reading the classics and a true appreciation for what constitutes great literature. Miss Geneva Meers was another of the wonderful teachers in the Cornell English Department. She loved the language and allowed us students to develop an acute understanding of its proper construction and effective usage.

And now as I am neck deep in my second career, I believe in my writing and am determined to promote my works, expand my readership and maybe make a buck. To that end, I proceed.

The Monument is a step far away from the material in my first two novels. Trapped in the Inferno and Escape from the Inferno deal with as modern man's entanglement in the ruthless world of black market renaissance artifacts. They are murder mysteries with the themes of greed, love, vengeance and betrayal. The Monument is a second world war novel based on a true event. The setting is authentic, the villages of the Aude Valley where I lived for over three years. The background is historic. But it is pure fantasy. The real people and events involved in Operation Peg were interesting. Read Paul Swank, Enduring Hero for the historic background. Read The Monument for a hell of a good story. I lead off with the first chapter which introduces the main character and hints at his problem.

Note to my readers...This is a novel. Though events similar to these were lived by sixteen men seventy five years ago, this story is completely fiction. The characters are creations of my imagination as are the events they experience. The area exists; I lived there and over the years did research involving the real heroes.

THE MONUMENT

CHAPTER I ALGERIA, AUGUST 10,1944

Dusk was descending over the tents that they had called home for several weeks now. The boring training sessions were history and sixteen faces wore the mask of anxiety mixed with the thrill of the mission. One face seemed indifferent. One face wore no

expression at all.

Quiet had settled over them in the last hour. The revelry of the mess tent lent a sense of the everyday to their lives, but every face among them knew different. Within a few minutes they would board the plane that at that hour sat at the end of the flat sand space cleared from the dunes of northern Africa. Only the serene face attached to a small soldier with red hair and no need for daily shaves did not peer occasionally in the direction of the three soldiers noiselessly checking the aircraft. He seemed to look at nothing at all. If he had raised his head, his comrades would have been startled by the serenity in the eyes. That might have been cause for alarm but they were somewhat accustomed to the unique young man who arrived only two weeks ago to join them. At first they were perplexed by his strange behavior, but as the days passed he performed his duties with skill although his were much different from what the platoon members possessed and honed in drills. Introducing the platoon to a few useful phrases in the language of the area into which they were being dropped was all he could do for the moment. He could barely lift the rifle and steadying it on his shoulder was seemingly an impossible task. To say he was a danger to others on the range was not a great overstatement. All seventeen had stories, lives that were interrupted by the crazy opportunist with the scruffy moustache who had to be stopped. We won’t deal here with the Imperial forces on the other side of the world. Our story will soon land in France with the seventeen.

All seventeen were specially selected and possessed skills needed in order for the mission to succeed with the odds so heavily tilted in favor of the enemy. His was one of the most critical jobs of the mission. Without his expertise bringing the ability to communicate with the Maquis of the valley surrounding the Aude River which flowed from the high Pyrenees on to eventually meet the Mediterranean Sea would be futile. Technically he was an interpreter but his value to the sixteen others was to make sure that their experience and leadership would be effectively transferred to the eager but untested members of the French resistance which until now had operated a hit and run war against the Nazis. Coordinating the destruction of a large supply depot and several bridges which allowed the enemy to distribute whatever was housed there was the mission’s goal. The nearly two hundred Germans assigned to Couiza where the depot was located were first rate soldiers. Along with the seventeen men enough arms to increase the resistance number from twenty five men as it now stood to two hundred was to be released over the target site. The French men would be untrained but eager to see the Nazi flag replaced by the tricolors. Their knowledge of the mountainous terrain and the element of surprise might tilt the field and expose the vulnerability of the enemy. The US troops had only days to train the new volunteers making them an effective unit in the plan to capture the depot. As if the blueprint wasn’t ambitious enough, hurdles included parachuting into a mountainous region, heavily wooded but sparsely populated and hoping the locals were not Vichy supporters.

“It’s time boys. They just fired up number one and the second is ready to go. Up and form, they aren’t bringing the plane to us.” All but one of them turned to face the large brawny Lieutenant whose voice broke their reverie, their thoughts of home or of what lay ahead of them. That one disguised his thoughts well, or truly he had no thoughts at all. He merely rose with all the others and turned toward the plane.

Jake Morris’ voice rang clear until the propellers and inevitable backfiring of the engines drowned him out. Bent under the weight of packs and parachutes they double timed. Soon the ladder was retracted, the men were arranged along the sides of the cylinder, and the pitch of the engines increased as the plane wobbled down the sandy surface and rose slowly into the darkness. All eyes were focused on some point near the boots of the soldier next to him. Only Jimmy was looking up. A tiny light on the ceiling of the plane blinked occasionally. He stared trying to determine a pattern. He was beside Sgt. Andrews but his mind traversed the miles and returned to the night.

That's the opening chapter of what I believe is a enlightening and entertaining novel. Next week I'll give you my favorite chapter in the novel, where a young medic suffers from battle fatigue without ever seeing battle.