Lewis's Oxford and grave (he loved cats--especially lions!)

On this day, November 22, 1963, Aldous Huxley died in LA of an LSD overdose, JFK died in Dallas from an assassin's bullet to the head. And on the same day at The Kilns near Oxford, C. S. Lewis's devoted brother Warnie brought a cup of tea to his ailing younger brother. Moments later, Warnie heard a clattering fall. Lewis had tried to get out of bed but had collapsed. He died of kidney failure. "Men must endure their going hence," was the Shakespeare quotation from the calendar on the day Lewis's mother had died many years before when he was nine. Warnie had the words chiseled on his brother's grave marker in Holy Trinity churchyard in Headington Quarry where you can see them today.  Eclipsed by the high-profile deaths of the author of Brave New World and an American president, in the drenching November rain, only a handful of friends showed up for Lewis's funeral and burial. 

In a chapter of God Sings! (And Ways We Think He Ought To), I explore a number of the things C. S. Lewis wrote about congregational singing and hymns, by no means all complimentary. Early in his Christian experience, he thought the things his unsophisticated neighbors tried to sing in church were "fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music." He revised that as he matured spiritually. I conclude that chapter with the following:

LEWIS SINGS NOW

In a thrilling moment in The Magician’s Nephew, Lewis gives us a peek into the irrepressible force of music, perhaps what he truly longed for in singing. He has Aslan utter

"...a long single note; not very loud, but full of power. Polly’s heart jumped in her body when she heard it.

She felt sure that it was a call, and that anyone who heard that call would want to obey it and (what’s

more) would be able to obey it, however many worlds and ages lay between."

We can be pretty certain Lewis and his brother would not be bolting from their pew at the end of the church service and heading for the exit sign during that kind of anthem.

Though Lewis may have been overly opinionated about congregational singing in worship, and wanted “fewer, better, and shorter hymns,” over time he did come to see “the great merit” of the voice of the congregation, untrained, but singing from the heart, voices joining together, making a joyful noise unto the Lord.

Three hundred years before Lewis’s time, another Oxford-trained poet, Thomas Ken, wrote of glorified saints singing in heaven:

And hymns with the supernal choir

Incessant sing and never tire.

We’re safe to assume that C. S. Lewis is doing it as we speak, singing more, the best, and longest hymns, incessant ones, right next to the man in elastic side boots who used to sing out of tune, but now who sings more like how God himself sings.

Douglas Bond is author of Grace Works! (And Ways We Think It Doesn't) and twenty-seven other books of historical fiction, biography, devotion, and practical theology. He is lyricist for New Reformation Hymns, directs the Oxford Creative Writing Master Class, speaks at churches and conferences, and leads Church history tours in Europe. His book God Sings! (And Ways We Think He Ought To), from which this post is an excerpt, is available at bondbooks.net; order today and receive a free Rise and Worship cd.

Armistice Day--Remembering True Heroes

My friend John Hemminger with his P-47

“Pay attention!”

            Steve Kelley, sportswriter for the Seattle Times, recently recollected the advice his father used to give him when they sat together watching the Philadelphia Phillies at Connie Mack Stadium. “Pay attention,” his dad would say when Willie Mays came to bat. “You’re watching greatness. You don’t want to forget this.”

I remember sitting on “Tightwad Hill” with my uncle watching the farm club Tacoma Twins, cheering wildly as I peered through the binoculars. Next day after school, I’d grab my bat and try my best to imitate the swing of those heavy-hitter wannabes. For the record, no matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t wired for baseball greatness. “You can’t put in what the Lord’s left out,” quipped the trainer in the classic film, Chariots of Fire. When I would come to bat at neighborhood games, on queue the outfield moved in, or just squatted down and waited until I finished flailing the air. Through all this, however, I have figured out something important: I pay attention to men I think are great, and I desperately try to be like them. And so do you. 

Kelley’s dad was right about one thing: you don’t want to forget greatness. We must sit up and “pay attention” to real greatness. But what makes someone worthy of this attention? What makes someone truly great, a worthy hero, someone you should never forget, someone you should hold in the highest regard, someone you should imitate?

All men honor heroes

“Any nation that does not honor its heroes,” said Abraham Lincoln, “will not long endure.” In an age when debunking heroes has become as American as apple pie and hot dogs, an age of flag-burning ingratitude, of pompous disdain for the past, an age that chants “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Culture’s got to go,” we should cringe at Lincoln’s prophetic words. Maybe we’ve come too close. Maybe we’re there already. Maybe we are a people that mock at real heroes and, in their place, are now bowing down before the real villains.

Nineteenth-century Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle wrote that “Hero-worship cannot cease till man himself ceases.” In the fifth century, Augustine referred to men as homo adorans, man made to adore, to worship, to venerate heroes. Thus, kings and generals are followed by their adoring armies even into the jaws of death. “Once more unto the breach, dear friends,” cried Shakespeare’s Henry V as he rallied his men before the battered walls of Harfleur, “or close the wall up with our English dead!”  In the 1^st century BC, Julius Caesar was so adored by his legions that they were prepared to cross the Rubicon and march in defiance against Rome and Pompey. Or the young Alexander the Great motivating thousands to fight and die so that he might spread Greek culture and language--and rule the world in the bargain.

The literature of Western Civilization is the fascinating saga of great achievement, an enduring celebration of heroes. Great poetry praises the deeds of heroes, real or imagined, from the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, to the bloody triumphs of Beowulf, to the dragon-slaying Red Cross Knight of Edmund Spenser’s epic allegory, to the 600 courageous men of Tennyson’s Light Brigade, even to the humble heroics of Tolkien’s mythical Frodo the Hobbit--it all fires the blood and fascinates the imagination.

One thing is overwhelmingly clear: You and I were made to adore heroes. We pay attention with all our being to great men.

Beware of false heroes

This ingrained tendency to adore heroes, however, poses particular challenges for young men growing up in a culture inundated by glitzy, muscle-bound icons of popular culture and the sports arena. Pop culture particularly plays on your love of heroes. It could not survive without it. The icons of entertainment demand your worship. They live and die for it. So it has always been.

Many historians argue that the history of the world is the history of men following heroes. It would be just as accurate to say that the history of the world is the history of young men blindly following the wrong heroes, following unworthy examples, whose vices are tragically compounded in their fawning worshipers.

So who are your heroes? In today’s reading, Paul urges the Philippian Christians to “Join with others in following my example,” that is to say, follow the right men, set up heroes for yourself and be like them. Speak as they speak; do as they do. The Bible often speaks this way. Twenty-eight times we are told to imitate others, often to follow Christ the Captain of our salvation, but fully seventeen of those times we are commanded to follow others, like Paul, who have been transformed by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ and have been enabled by that same power to heroically follow Christ.

 Paul, here, is in earnest. This is no casual advice, take it or leave it. No. He reminds us, “I have often told you before and now say again even with tears.” Why with tears? Why so earnest? Because “many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.” Because an earthly hero has his “mind on earthly things.” And the young man who chooses to follow worldly heroes, to applaud at their entertainments, to listen to their music, to cheer at their achievement, to spend his money on their products, to paper the walls of his bedroom with their posters, that young man should not be surprised if he follows those heroes right into the jaws of hell. From this, you and I are duty bound to draw the line in the sand. This is no trivial matter. Don’t follow the enemies of the cross of Christ. “Their destiny,” Paul declares without equivocation, “is destruction.” And so will yours prove to be if you follow them.

Moreover, the more impressed you are by the status and achievement of unbelievers, by their sophisticated good looks, by their clothes, their shoes, by their posture, their swagger, by their prowess in sports, by their associations, their way of speaking, by their money and fancy cars, lavish houses, planes, and yachts, the more you are moved by these things the less you will be able to separate out their vices. Soon they won’t seem like vices at all. At the last their vices will be yours. Know that their end will be yours as well. Fully expect to become like those you adore.  

“We are all creatures of imitation,” wrote nineteenth-century Anglican bishop J. C. Ryle. “Precept may teach us, but it is example that draws us.” And since those examples can draw us from both directions, you must beware of the tendency to go easy on the parts of your sports or music heroes’ lives that you know are sinful.

Do you honestly think that you will be unaffected by the foul language, the unfaithful living, the hostility to truth, or the swaggering arrogance of your worldly heroes? I doubt it. And the more impressed you are with their achievement the more likely you are to embrace other elements of their lifestyle.

Don’t expect to see it coming like a tidal wave. It all happens gradually. Rarely does a young man, like yourself, who is growing up in a Christian home, rarely does he plunge headlong into sin with his back against all he has been taught. Generally, it happens little by little, one single, what’s-the-big-deal step at a time. “The road to hell,” observed C. S. Lewis, “is a gradual one.”

The best way to avoid the gradual road to hell, is to cultivate honor for and imitation of truly worthy heroes. Here’s one of mine.

Fight to the death

            I’ve thought a good deal lately about one of my heroes. P-47 World War II fighter pilot, John Hemminger lived with his wife and three children on American Lake, a five-minute bicycle ride from my childhood home. I was the neighbor kid who always hung around in the summer, fishing, swimming, and doing wood-working projects in the basement. Along with the stray dogs that attached themselves to kind-hearted Mr. Hemminger, I too adopted the Hemminger family as my own.

My mother’s rule was that I couldn’t go swimming unless the thermometer read seventy degrees. I soon figured out how to nudge it up with the hair dryer, and then I’d hop on my bike and off to the Hemmingers. I always tried to time things so I could sit down for the usual lunch fare of grilled cheese sandwiches, soup, Gravenstien apple sauce, dilly beans, and smoked salmon. Nobody did homemade applesauce like Edna Hemminger, and nobody did salmon like John Hemminger.

John Hemminger was a man of deeds and not words, and so I rarely heard him speak about the war, and never about his role in it. I was forced to piece things together from pictures and from stories others told about his role in that great conflict.

“The greatest catastrophe in history,” Stephen Ambrose called World War II and “the most costly war of all time.” In April, 1945, 300,000 Americans attacked the Japanese island of Okinawa, while the US Navy was pounded by 350 kamikaze planes. We lost thirty-six ships. In human life, the casualties were beyond staggering: 49,200 men in one battle. The Japanese lost 112,129 human lives at Okinawa. Still they fought on.

Germany surrendered in May, but by summer, it appeared that Japan would fight on until there was not a Japanese soldier who remained alive. A full-scale Allied invasion of Japan seemed the only option, but it was an invasion that would have cost 1,000,000 American soldiers their lives. President Truman opted to drop two atomic bombs on Japan in hopes of breaking the enemy’s will to fight to extermination. It was as if the entire nation had become kamikaze flyers.

           

Fighter pilot greatness

In 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, America joined the war, and can-do men like John Hemminger were desperately needed to fight. He said goodbye to his childhood sweetheart, Edna Mae Firch, and joined up.

The picture I will always have in my mind of him is of a quiet young man in a leather bomber jacket, a shy, boyish grin stretching across his handsome features, posing with his beloved P-47, affectionately dubbed Edna Mae. Though called on to do highly dangerous and daring feats, there was no hint of the cocky, swaggering dog fighter in his looks or carriage.

John Hemminger loved machines. I can only begin to imagine his fascination at first sight of his P-47’s Pratt and Whitney, eighteen cylinder, 2,800 horsepower engine, or the heart-pounding thrill when he first accelerated into the heavens at his plane’s maximum speed of 433 mph.

He was a gentle, peace-loving man, so I particularly wonder what his first thoughts were when he laid eyes on the eight 12.7mm Browning machine guns bristling from the wings of his P-47, a machine engineered for killing. One thing I’m sure of: there was no better cared for fighter plane than his, and likely none more skillfully used for its designed purpose.

John Hemminger was credited with the last P-47 kill of the war. By some accounts, he and the Japanese pilot were slugging it out somewhere over the blue waters of the Pacific, September 2, 1945, while American top brass accepted the Japanese unconditional surrender on board the USS Missouri. The facts are unclear, because John Hemminger rarely spoke about the war, and boasting was something he never did.

What is clear is that John Hemminger, along with a generation of Americans, was a humble servant hero who did his duty, and then, unlike many with whom he fought, he returned home. Bidding farewell to his P-47 Edna Mae, he married his beloved Edna Mae, raised his family, and lived a long, seemingly insignificant, life. John Hemminger and his dear wife were not bombastic about their faith in Christ, but few people have more consistently lived out the Lord’s injunction to love their neighbor as themselves. Consequently, their home was a quiet, contented one, filled with stability and service.

In the world’s eyes, after the war John Hemminger lived an ordinary life, some might have called it boring. But not so to the dozens of missionaries he supported and took fishing when they were home, and whose decrepit cars he repaired, rebuilt, or replaced, often at his own expense. And all done hush-hush, so no one would give him credit for his latest acts of generosity.

True greatness

Jesus told his disciples, if they wanted to be great, to become servants. He didn’t say to become great baseball players, or inventors, or CEOs, or powerful politicians, or celebrity pastors, or best-selling authors—or even fighter pilots. “Whoever wants to become great,” Jesus said, “must be your servant” (Matthew 20:26). If you want to be great you too, must be a servant. John and Edna Hemminger were great Christians, because they were transformed into great servants by the ultimate Servant of servants, Jesus Christ.

My hero John Hemminger died of Parkinson’s Disease, December 27, 2006. His wife Edna Mae suffered for decades with Multiple Sclerosis before her home going. But I never heard either of them complain. They bore their trials with patience—even with smiles. Nor did I ever hear either of them speak critical words about others. I think they were simply too busy, in Christ’s name and by his grace, loving and serving their neighbors. Pay attention, young man. This is true greatness.

You probably don’t need to travel to faraway places to get to know and honor servant heroes. I suspect that in your church, neighborhood, and extended family there are several John and Edna Mae Hemmingers. Folks like them help unmask the masquerade of what passes for greatness among modern celebrities. Pop icons and all their vain-glorious glitter look pretty irrelevant next to great people like these--but only if you train your eye and your affections to know and honor genuine greatness.

Glitz or glory

Let’s face it. It’s far easier to talk about being impressed with servant greatness than it is to actually be so. I wonder if the normalization of sin is not the reason. “Worldliness is what makes sin look normal,” wrote David Wells, “and righteousness look odd.” Hence, venerating worldly heroes sets us up to begin feeling that humble, holy living is pretty out of touch, not much fun, certainly not cool.

Here again, you must pay attention. When you honor heroes who live worldly lives, you should expect to gradually become more impressed with their worldliness. Meanwhile, your worldly hero’s lifestyle will increasingly seem to be the normal way of things. And since no one wants to be odd, everyone wants to think of himself as a normal guy, so gradually you will wink at their vices, embrace their values, and imitate their ways. Finally, Paul’s point in Philippians 3:17-21 is that if you do this, when the dust settles, you will share in their destruction.

Puritan Jeremy Taylor described the incremental decline that a young man should expect to pass through if he forges friendships with worldly heroes and their sin. “First it startles him, then it becomes pleasing, then easy, then delightful, then frequent, then habitual, then confirmed, then the man is impenitent, then obstinate, then resolves never to repent, and finally he is damned.”

On the Judgment Day, all that worldly glitz, all that superficially impressive lifestyle will be unmasked. And if you have been duped by a false hero, by one whose “mind is on earthly things,” it will be far too late to halt the cycle of decline. You must do it now.

Join with others in following the example of great Christians—like John and Edna Mae Hemminger. The Bible is full of them, and so is church history. Pay attention to them.

Throw in your lot with the truly greats. Know your citizenship. Paul says it is “in heaven.” Know that most of the world’s heroes are frauds. Their power, their prestige, their wealth, is all borrowed and will someday be swept away with them. “Their destiny is destruction.” No real man would throw in his lot with losers like that.

You, young man of God, were predestined for a glorious body, transformed by the infinite power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Make him your ultimate hero, honor those who honor him, and resolve that he will have no worldly rival.

(Excerpt from STAND FAST In the Way of  Truth)

Learn more about my 20th Century books, War in the Wasteland (WWI) and The Resistance (WWII), both a significant CS Lewis historical connections--bondbooks.net  

Sneak preview of my forthcoming WWII historical fiction set in French Resistance Normandy

French Resistance fighter's false identity card WWII

Opening chapter from my WWII historical fiction in progress. Memorial Day seemed like a good day to post this draft of chapter one. 

1

Bombs Away

R

iley Straight flexed his gloved fingers on the controls of his B-17. His breath quickened, condensation trickling around the edges of his flight mask, then freezing. He glanced from the instrument panel of his Flying Fortress, then out the cockpit window.

“Approaching target.” The steady, good-humored voice of Riley’s navigator, 2/Lt. Charles Dudley, came through the interphone.

“Here comes the wrath o’ God, Jerry,” said Riley through the interphone so all his crew could hear.

“Maybe this’ll be a milk run after all.” Riley heard Freddy Ferguson his copilot’s voice crackling in the interphone in his headset.

He glanced at his copilot. “Fred, you’re new at this?”

The RAF only flew their bombing missions at night. But not the American Army Air Corps. Riley leaned forward, peering left and right out the cockpit windows. He had to admit, the view was better by day.

Far below, bordered by hedgerows, lay fields of wheat, rolling meadows, and pastures with specks of white—sheep or were they French beef cattle? At this altitude it was too hard to tell. His Fort chattered through a turbulent cloud hillock, then broke clear again.

The aerial tidiness of the pastoral scene below—it was part of the allure of flight for Riley. He swallowed hard, doing his best to ignore the clutching at his insides. Part of the allure and the curse. If only there had been some way to get the scenery and the thrill of flying, but without the dizzying nausea that always went with it. No amount of self-berating had solved it. If he couldn’t be rid of it, at least he’d become expert at hiding it—so he hoped.

“Rollout!” the squadron orderly had barked at 0430 that morning. “All pilots, briefing in twenty. Maximum effort!”

Twenty minutes later, Riley’s squadron leader had given the order: “Mr. Straight, you’re flying tail-end Charlie.” It seemed like forever ago. But here he was flying, “Coffin corner,” as flyers called it. Last bomber in the formation, the one the Luftwaffe went after first.

“Keep it tight, Mr. Straight,” bomb group commander Mills had said into the radio just after takeoff.

Riley never forgot his first time in the pilot’s seat, flying in tight formation, sitting left seat, his hands on the controls. The other B-17s were so close, he felt he could reach out and touch their wings. And some of the other pilots in the squadron were still teenagers. Unlike so many, he’d lived to turn twenty, leave his teens behind him; his birthday was just last week. Flying in tight formation and all it took was a split second of distraction, a slight deviation in course or speed.

Flying so close—Riley felt the inexorable compulsion to get clear. At speeds of 310 miles per hour, it demanded nerves of steel to fly tight. Scattered formation, just what the Luftwaffe was waiting for, and German fighters would dive in like wolves on straggling caribou.

Hence, his group commander’s reminder that morning: “Keep it tight, Mr. Straight.”

Another bank of cloud passed underneath, gray and heavy. Riley held steady as his Fort lurched in the turbulence. Visibility restored, the rural scene far below gave way to a drab industrial landscape, stark concrete blocks with gaping chimneys belching smoke heavenward. Their target, a French automobile factory, now a German munitions factory. And heavily guarded with antiaircraft guns—German guns.  

“Milk run?” Riley raised an eyebrow at his copilot.  

Glancing from the instrument panel out the window, Riley watched the first antiaircraft batteries springing to life. Bursts of white flame erupted far below. But there was no exploding sound, not audible above the rumble of four Wright R1820-97 air-cooled 1,380 horsepower engines. He didn’t know why, but rehearsing his bomber’s powerplant specifications calmed him, reassured him.

He braced himself. It was coming. When he could hear the Flak explode above his engines, it meant trouble.

“German 88s,” he murmured. Riley knew the damage Hitler’s high-velocity, antiaircraft cannons could inflict on his fortress. Twenty-pound shells fired in rapid succession, calibrated with German precision for their flying altitude, didn’t even have to make a direct hit to cripple a Flying Fortress.

Riley gripped the half-round steering control of his Fort till his fingers hurt. Bursting in grim black clouds on all sides of the squadron, Flak could send deadly shards of shrapnel ripping into the fuselage, wings, fuel and oxygen lines of his bomber—and through the flesh and bone of his crew. He had counted over one hundred holes in his plane after his last mission. In spite of their Flak vests, his tail gunner and flight engineer had both been strafed by molten shrapnel from the 88s. By the time his bombardier had released their load, and his navigator had calibrated their return course, the two men were bleeding profusely from their wounds. When Riley finally landed his crippled Fort on the runway and taxied to a halt, his tail gunner and flight engineer had bled out. They were dead.

That was last week’s mission. Because he and part of his crew had survived, here they were again over France, but with a new tail gunner and flight engineer, the latter just promoted from ground maintenance.

 “Two minutes to target,” drawled Riley’s navigator, Charles Dudley. Charles was from West Virginia, born and reared. For his perpetual grin, the squadron called him Chuckles for short. Even his voice through the interphone, engines roaring, Flak exploding, sounded like he was grinning, on the verge of a good chuckle.

“Keep it tight,” Riley told himself. He knew that any change in altitude or speed at this instant and 6,000 pounds of high explosives would entirely miss the factory, destroying, instead, the nearby village.

A black cloud of exploding Flak erupted with a roar at nine o’clock. Riley felt and heard it rattling against the fuselage of his Fort. The muscles in his abdomen tightened. He hated Flak. It was so random, exploding and sending molten shrapnel scattering throughout the bomb group. You couldn’t shoot back at Flak. It just seemed to erupt out of nowhere. He knew how it worked: German antiaircraft gunners on the ground calculated the squadron’s altitude and speed, then calibrated their 88s and let fly. Evasive action, irregular alterations in course, was all any pilot could do. But flying 310 miles an hour in tight formation with a squadron of B-17s meant evasive action had to be coordinated precisely—or else.

Another burst of black smoke, his B-17 lurching with the explosive impact; more molten shrapnel pummeled Riley’s bomber. Germans were good at trigonometry. Their calculations were getting better.

“That was close!” yelled the chin gunner.

“Danged Flak, tore off my headset!” shouted the tail gunner in the interphone.

“Tore off whose head?” The new flight engineer’s voice sounded near panic.

“Hardy-har. Not my head,” said the tail gunner. “My headset.”

Riley heard Freddy his copilot checking with each member of the crew. “Waste gunners? Ball turret gunner? Bombardier?” If they didn’t respond, they’d either been hit by Flak or their oxygen line had been severed. Or it could be something as simple as condensation freezing and clogging the line. Either way, without oxygen at this altitude, a man would pass out in minutes, and his 0.50 caliber Browning machine gun would be silent when the Luftwaffe closed in for the kill.

All ten crewmen reported in. No one had been hit—this time.

“Eyes peeled.” Speaking to all his crew by interphone, Riley forced his voice to be steady, confident, unafraid sounding. “Guns ready.”

He knew that every man, from tail gunner to chin gunner, was already scouring the sky for German fighters, finger on the trigger, ready for action. The fighters would come, sooner or later, usually sooner. If only they could deliver their bomb load first. 

Riley glanced at the altimeter: 20,000 feet, bombing range. More black clouds of exploding Flak. More clattering and rending of shrapnel against the aluminum fuselage of his Fort.

“Approaching target.” From the navigation table, Chuckles voice was pleasant and steady, then he added, as he often did, “‘How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors.’”

Riley gripped the steering controls as another burst of Flak made the bomber shutter. He hoped Chuckles’ Bible verse was for the Jerries and not for them. More Flak.

Forget the Flak, concentrate, he told himself. There was no dodging Flak. And B-17s could take more beating than any other aircraft in the Army Air Corps. Riley knew he had one job, keep his bomber on course, precise course. Begin his bombing run too early and he exposed his Fort and crew to more Flak; begin too late and they’d miss their target. Three-and-a-half tons of high explosive could land on the nearby village.

The thought of killing innocent women and children, grandmothers and grandfathers—the Nazi brutes did it intentionally every day—but it was something about this air war Riley hated even more than the Germans.

“Bearing one-four-seven degrees.”

“Roger that, bombardier,” replied Riley in the interphone.

Nothing else mattered. Every target they hit slowed the German advance. Every bomber the Germans downed slowed the Allied advance.

“Thirty seconds to target.”

“Roger that, bombardier.” Riley was determined to hit their target. It troubled him that some of the workers in that factory might be conscripted labor, local French pressed against their will into building the German war machine. Some he’d heard were French Resistance saboteurs working in those factories—men and women—doing their bit to frustrate German manufacturing.

“O God, not at this target,” he murmured.  

Suddenly, Flak burst red at ten o’clock and a dense black cloud engulfed the cockpit windows. Blinded for an instant, Riley felt the shrapnel tearing at his Fort, and fourteen tons of airplane and armament lurching with the force of the explosion.

“I’m sorry, Sir.” It was the voice of the more taciturn of his two waist gunners. “I’m hit, Sir.”

“We’ll get you patched up.” Riley tried to sound more confident than he felt.

“Number two engine’s in flames!” shouted the flight engineer. “Cut fuel selector!”

Riley flipped the number two engine fuel selector switch to the off position. He flipped it again. No response.

“She’s still burning!” yelled the flight engineer.

Fire would spread. Riley knew if they didn’t drop their bomb load they would go down in an apocalyptic inferno.

“We’re nearly over the target.” Ralph Coleman his bombardier knew the same. “Ten seconds.”

“Level.” Ralph’s voice came steady and ominous through the interphone.

“Roger, that.” Fighting with the controls, Riley did his best to feather his three good engines to compensate for the lost one. He studied his instrument panel: altitude, speed—any deviation would throw off the gyro of his bombardier’s Norden Bombsight—and they’d miss their target and do collateral damage to civilian population. Hold steady, and he knew that Ralph could drop their bombs into a pickle barrel from this altitude. If the pilot held her steady. Wrestling with the controls, Riley clenched his teeth till his jaw hurt. His injured Fort had a maniacal mind of its own.

Suddenly, the antiaircraft 88s fell silent, no firing flares from antiaircraft guns, no erupting clouds of Flak, no strafing shrapnel—it could only mean one thing.

Fighters. Germans weren’t about to shoot down their own fighter planes with their own antiaircraft cannons. German fighters—they’d dive in for the kill any second.

With the numbing realization, as the bomb bay opened, Riley felt a blast of freezing air rending its way through the cockpit. He glanced back at his bombardier; Ralph’s eyes were steady on his bombsites. 

“Bombs away!”

I will let you in on another piece of the puzzle: This book will be a companion to War in the Wasteland set in WWI. Give me your comments and thoughts on the excerpt. Follow progress at bondbooks.net and subscribe to my blog to get more sneak previews of The Resistance [working title].

THIS IS WAR! Memorial Day excerpt from new release

As we pause on this Memorial Day and remember those who sacrificed their lives for our freedoms, I want to share with readers this excerpt from my new WW I release WAR IN THE WASTELAND, my protagonist a lens to his platoon leader, teen atheist 2/Lt CS Lewis. “War in the Wasteland is a gripping, informative, adrenalin-producing picture of World War I. The awful moments of fear and the reflective conversations of men who don't know if they'll survive the day, are captured on every page of this book.” Douglas E. Lee, Brigadier General, USA (Ret), President, Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty

Excerpt from chapter 32 THIS IS WAR, moments before Nigel and his squad go over the top.

...Nigel did not feel particularly courageous that morning. He glanced to his left. There was Sergeant Ayres, so unlike other men. While most powerful men he had read about in history books—kings, popes, generals—used their might to subdue others, Ayres had the singular ability of giving his inexhaustible strength away to others, as a gift. Nigel listened to his own breathing, hot and rapid. He felt it was urgent. He studied the man; he had to know what made Sergeant Ayres so unlike other men.

His mouth set in a resolute line, Sergeant Ayres lifted his left hand and kissed the gold band on his ring finger. Sergeant Ayres was married. Dedicated as he was to his squad, he was married, perhaps with children at home; his wife may have a babe in arms, one that her husband may not have met—may never meet. It had never occurred to Nigel to think of Sergeant Ayres with a wife, children, a life beyond the army. Nigel watched his sergeant kiss his wedding ring a second time. He must love her dearly, more than life itself.

Nigel felt ashamed. Being in charge was a harder condition than he had ever imagined. Up to this moment, he had only seen his sergeant as someone to help him with his own problems, his own fears, with Perrett’s fears. It had never occurred to him that the man who guarded and doted over his squad, that that same man carried on his shoulders the still weightier responsibility of family, left without him back in England. Drenched fingers opening and closing on the fore stock of his rifle, Nigel felt selfish and ashamed.

But in that shame, an awakening began to occur in Nigel’s mind, a realization he had always tried to avoid. Giving the orders, when done well, was far more about giving something to others than taking something from them. Too many men cared far too much about the power and status of leadership rather than its cost. Maybe that’s why there was a war like this one. It was a consideration that Nigel felt he needed to think about deeply, alone, away from all this. If he ever had the chance.

Then it began. As if frame-by-frame, Lieutenant Lewis moved his trench whistle closer to his lips. Rain water ran off the sleeve of his trench coat, drip-dripping from the elbows. The fingers holding the whistle, white with cold, trembled slightly. A stream of rain water dribbled off the rim of his Tin hat onto the whistle. The whistle and Lieutenant Lewis’s lips nearly touched, like Sergeant Ayres and his ring. Nigel felt a twinge of hope; maybe the whistle, soaked with water, would fail to sound.

There it was. Trilling tunelessly, like a train nearing a crossing, a trench whistle blew. And with that blowing time seemed to fall to its belly and creep along like Nigel had once seen a sloth doing at The London Zoo.

The trench whistle, it made an odd sound. How could a single whistle sound flat, off pitch, out of tune? Out of tune with what? Beneath the thunder of the barrage suddenly it was the close sounds, the intimate ones that became distinct, penetrating: The shying of rainfall, the squelching of boots in mud, a raspy cough. And labored, intentional breathing, as men attempted to marshal courage to face the horror of what lay ahead. But there was the trench whistle.

“Why aren’t we going?” asked Nigel.

“Not our platoon,” said Sergeant Ayres. “Lieutenant Johnson’s boys, just there.”

“Why before us?” said Wallace.

Nigel watched Lieutenant Johnson, revolver in hand, whistle between his teeth, leap out of the trench, beckoning his platoon to follow him over the top. With shouts of defiance, Johnson’s men hurled themselves toward the enemy.

We’re for it next, thought Nigel. But still they waited. The waiting—that was the worst of it. Encircled

by grinding hopelessness, by the unremitting slaughter of men, oddly Nigel did not consciously consider whether it would happen to him. It seemed so utterly inevitable that it required no consideration. All would soon be over. Nigel found a corner of his brain toying with the notion of death. Could death be worse than this? Would not a hasty obliteration, as he had witnessed to left and right of him, would it not be an escape? It required a body to feel unrelenting pain, and a brain to be numb with fear. To live each hour under the enervating anticipation of one’s own violent dismemberment and dying, was it worse than death itself?... 

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Crosses among 10s of 1000s

INKBLOTS--Writing with the most prolific author of the 19th century

Seven ‘Blots tonight (Justin arriving after work, so eight), seated around my scriptorium. I began by sharing CH Spurgeon’s seven pieces of writing advice (one of the most prolific writers of the 19^th century, if not all time). Much to consider here: 

1. Write to Help others
“We are very mistaken, if our work does not prove to be of the utmost value to purchasers of books…no object in view but the benefit of our brethren…it will be remuneration enough to have aided the ministers of God in the study of his word” (Sword & Trowel, March 1876).
2. Write Short
“Long visits, long stories, long essays, long exhortations, and long prayers, seldom profit those who have to do with them. Life is short. Time is short.…Moments are precious. Learn to condense, abridge, and intensify…In making a statement, lop off branches; stick to the main facts in your case. If you pray, ask for what you believe you will receive, and get through; if you speak, tell your message and hold your peace; if you write, boil down two sentences into one, and three words into two. Always when practicable avoid lengthiness — learn to be short” (Sword & Trowel, September 1871).
3. Write for God
“Courteous reader, throughout another year we have endeavored, month by month, to provide for your entertainment and edification. For both, because the first is to the most of men needful to produce the second, and also because God hath joined them together, and no man should put them asunder” (Sword & Trowel, Preface, 1875).

4. Write Clearly
“So I gathered that my sermons were clear enough to be understood by anybody who was not so conceited as to darken his own mind with pride. Now, if boys read The Sword and the Trowel it cannot be said to shoot over people’s heads, nor can it be said to be very dull and dreary” (Sword & Trowell, November 1874).
5. Write to Compel
“It was an ill day when religion became so decorous as to call dullness her companion, and mirth became so frivolous as to demand the divorce of instruction from amusement. It is not needful that magazines for Christian reading should be made up of pious platitudes, heavy discourses, and dreary biographies of nobodies: the Sabbath literature of our families might be as vivacious and attractive as the best of amusing serials, and yet as deeply earnest and profitable as the soundest of divines would desire” (Sword & Trowel, Preface, 1875). “If the writer had possessed genius and literary ability, this might have been a highly interesting work; but as the writers’ sole qualification is his honesty of purpose, the work is most reliable and dull” (Sword & Trowel, November 1882).
6. Write, Write, & Write
“Many of our hours of pain and weakness have been lightened by preparing the first volume of our book on the Psalms for the press. If we could not preach we could write, and we pray that this form of service may be accepted of the Lord” (Sword & Trowel, January 1870).
7. Read to Write
“Read good authors, that you may know what English is, you will find it to be a language very rarely written nowadays, and yet the grandest of all human tongues” (Sword & Trowel, August 1871).

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Doug Mac led off our Inkblot's time this evening, reading from Return to Tarawa, his intriguing WW II Pacific Theater yarn. Cosmic epic scale, world war is big, but seen through the eyes of ordinary young men trying to figure it all out and survive. We discussed the challenges of the vague attribution, we, us, they, etc, and the importance of sticking with a dominant perspective (which Doug Mac largely does throughout), and what to do with the other men without names from the squad, platoon, etc. There is reality at work here, because we don’t know the names of lots of the people we rub shoulders with on a given day, but how to make the contrivance in fiction come off as genuine. Great progress on this manuscript, given the highest rank that Writers Edge reading service gives a manuscript, and soon to be another Inkblots Press release.

Rachel Y read, with some urging, from her cheese yarn, a fascinating, detailed, mouth-slavering story about smuggling cheese from Italy to Russia. We are all hungry, salivating, craving cheese. And thinking about how devastating government regulation of the economy is (especially when it comes to good food). We discussed the use of the almost, nearly qualifiers. John brought up how we deal with criticism. Take what is being offered, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the critic is right, but they have helped the writer by pointing out an area that needs attention. Embrace the criticism, keeping in mind that the person who just heard you read doesn’t know the larger context, what you wrote in the last chapter, where you’re going after what you just read.  But swallow pride, and welcome criticism (or hang up your pen and take up underwater basket weaving).

Josh Y puts us in context in his post-apocalyptic drama. Lodges and outside of town. It seemed like an odd mixture of the primitive and the civilized. Sort of shirt, is it sort of or the real deal? Blouse or tunic might be better. Mouth sweetly shaped, could this be a more specific comparison? Sweetly is a vague descriptor for a physical feature, rather than a character quality or a taste. Where are you going with this story? Is it part of a larger yarn. Josh explained that it is a series of books. The female interest in the yarn loses her toenail. John thought that sounded odd. Josh explained that it would come into the story later. Rachel PH and the other women present offered valuable perspective to a young male writer who would rather be writing a fight scene than a tender romantic moment in the yarn. Thanks, ladies.

INKBLOTS PRESS New Release! WW I yarn

John S reads from Saving Grace, his contemporary fiction work, a novel that exposes the evil of abortion. This is a moment where the protagonist is pondering a moral dilemma. If she doesn’t have an abortion she will lose her job, scholarship to college, pressures exerted by a manipulative parent. Someone had to be thrown under the bus. What about clichés in contemporary fiction? If a character is using it in dialogue then it makes sense to use it, but in narrative, the use of clichés is off limits. Are there other mannerisms that Grace would have when she is talking with the counselor? Does she cross her legs and bob her leg up and down, or ring her hands, or tuck hair behind her ear? The interaction between the counselor and the counselee seems kind of wooden, and the prayer is good, but I think it works better to give us only part of the prayer and then summarize the rest in narrative, how it was heard by Grace. I think there’s some overwriting here. I promise to be quiet, thank you Sarah. It seems to pat. Things worked out for her. Maybe there’s hope for me. Seems too pat. Sarah’s story is profound, but seems too much. For now. Justin commented that it seemed too fast forward, too much happening to fast. 

I finished off (no time to read from my Drama of the Reformation, audio theater project) by sharing about the final process to finished book with WAR IN THE WASTELAND, now available in print and ebook. Order a signed copy here and get free domestic shipping and a free download of the comprehensive study guide.