The Hands of Time--A Tribute to My Father-in-law

Jerrell Wayne Lewellen May 29, 1935—April 30, 2018

I will never forget my first encounter with Jerrell—it was 35 years ago this month. Rather, I will never forget my first encounter with his hands, in that first handshake. As his massive, work-hardened hand closed around mine, I thought, “This man could crush every bone in my hand, if he had a mind to.” Glancing nervously up from our clasped hands, I looked into his blue-gray eyes, sparkling with life and good humor, the dimple crater in his cheek as he smiled at me—and I felt somewhat more hopeful about the bones in my hand.

I thought I had callouses on my hand, some callouses, sometimes—they weren’t entirely soft. But Jerrell’s hands had a ready-to-grab-and-work look and feel, as if they had been formed and shaped by hefting bars of iron—which, of course, they had been. Sure, my hands had some degree of harder skin, in places, that might pass for callouses. But Jerrell’s hands were callouses, living, flexing monuments to a man who had made work into something akin to a sacrament, a useful, joyful, holy activity that had shaped not only massive steel buildings, and young apprentices, but had shaped his entire life.

How did those hands get to be that way?

Jerrell was a man of tools and work, a man of steel, a block of iron ore with arms and legs—and hands, hands with callouses. Jerrell was certified to weld every ore on the planet, a man of cultural dominion who took raw materials and shaped them into useful forms, a man who tamed steel, made it do what he needed it to do to get the problem at hand solved, to get the job accomplished.

And he did all this with a full-bodied grin on his face (most of the time). Jerrell had fun doing it; and it was contagious, even if you were the butt of the practical joke (ask Paul K for the details; there are many details).

Jerrell could multi-task. He could be about to flip down his welding hood, but just before striking an arc, pause to tell a story. Nobody could tell a story like Jerrell. And he had stories to tell. Hear the stories of his youth, and the wonder is that Jerrell lived long enough to get Alzheimer’s. Stories of his childhood on the ranch, in the mountains near Northbend, hunting, shooting, blowing things up (including the outhouse—while his brother Garry was using the outhouse), stories about pranks with wildcats, thugs, carburetors, gunpowder and cannons, boating adventures. Jerrell was an endless source of entertainment for his grandkids. When he wasn’t around, my kids would try to retell Grandpa stories, but they never quite worked unless Jerrell was telling them. He “remembered with advantages the feats he did that day.” 

But being an ironworker was dangerous, had its hazards. I’ll never forget receiving the phone call some years ago, that Jerrell was being rushed from the job site to the hospital; a 1,500# steel I-beam had fallen on him. Fearful of the worst, when Cheryl and I arrived, there was Jerrell sitting up in the ER gurney, as I recall it, telling a story to the ER nurse, animated, full-bodied grin, big calloused hands gesturing as he spun the yarn, dimple in all its splendor. For a moment, I felt sorry for the steel I-beam. My guess is it had a permanent Jerrell-shaped crook in it and was good for nothing but the scrap heap after attempting to crush Jerrell Wayne Lewellen.

Though his hands were hardened with callouses from work, it would be an enormous mistake to think of him as calloused, in the sense of hard, detached, unfeeling. This block of iron ore, was a man of tender feeling, a lover of his wife, his children, his grandchildren—and he was a lover of books, and reading; a lover of Shakespeare, but especially a lover of reading the Bible.

Though his hands were hard, there was nothing hard and unfeeling about the man. With those same hands, Jerrell milked a succession of cows—by hand, no machine needed or wanted—the last cow named Lucy. It was yet another way he could provide for his family, and, as he grew older, milking a cow by hand, twice a day, served as therapy, not only to ease the arthritic pain in his hands, but as a spiritual activity, a time of calm, of prayer, of quiet and tender reflection on the God who provided so abundantly for Jerrell and his family, on the God he loved and served with those hands, and that big, big heart.

Jerrell was a complex individual. Hammer-and-tongs ironworker that he was, picture with me the man holding court at lunch hour on the job site, young apprentices, who just that morning had learned yet another trick of the trade, a better way to do it right, now gathered around to hear Jerrell recite from his beloved Shakespeare. The man who had decided that formal schooling was overrated a few weeks before he would have graduated from high school, had later in his life discovered Shakespeare, one of the early bonding moments for Jerrell and this son-in-law. Listen in as Jerrell held court with those tough men, this passage one of his oft-recited favorites:

The quality of mercy is not strained; 
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest; 
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: 
‘T is mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes 
The throned monarch better than his crown… 
…mercy is above this sceptred sway; 
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings, 
It is an attribute to God himself; 
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s 
When mercy seasons justice. 
Therefore… 
Though justice be thy plea, consider this, 
That, in the course of justice, none of us 
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy; 
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 
The deeds of mercy.

From this man, these ironworkers heard some of the most profound and ultimate truths expressed in the most beautiful words, words rendered with such gusto and feeling by Jerrell. During these Shakespeare tutorials delivered to those, no doubt, bewildered ironworkers, he would pause to savor another bite of his beloved Pat’s incomparable apple pie. Jerrell and Pat had a mutual understanding. She would make all the pies Jerrell could eat, so long as he picked and peeled the apples. Though Jerrell had selective hearing loss, he heard and heeded this message. Nobody peeled apples like Jerrell.

Picture the man, hunched over the bucket, those hands again, hands deftly wielding one of his many razor-sharp pocket knives, methodically peeling another Granny Smith, green curly-cue peel trailing from his knife like a lacy work of art. I think of Jerrell peeling those apples—and Pat baking them with such loving skill—as something of a metaphor of their life together, of Jerrell’s life. It wasn’t finally about just getting the job done, accomplishing another task. Peeling apples slowed the pace, became another opportunity to pause and reflect, to take captive every thought, every activity to the obedience of Jesus Christ. Life was imminently important to Jerrell, but not just the big parts, planting the flag on the newly completed skyscraper. Every cut, every weld was important. Peeling the apples was important and to be done with artistry, and care, and love. Peeling the apples was to be enjoyed as much as sinking his gold-filled teeth into another scrumptious piece of Pat’s apple pie.

Building a house by his own unique design, every brick laid with those same hands, or building a steel fishing boat, a shop, the King Dome—building his family, whatever Jerrell was building, whatever problem he was solving, he did it with gusto, with laughter, with enjoyment. Jerrell lived out “Man’s chief end… to glorify God and to enjoy God forever.” By the grace and mercy of Christ, this was Jerrell’s life—and now his forevermore life.

A final word from Jerrell’s beloved Shakespeare, lines he would sometimes recite as he watched the tide in Dutcher’s Cove, his cove:

There is a tide in the affairs of men 
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; 
Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
Is bound in shallows and in miseries. 
On such a full sea are we now afloat, 
And we must take the current when it serves, 
Or lose our ventures.

By the grace of Christ, Jerrell did not omit this all-important tide in the affairs of men. For him that tide was the Water of Life, the only Savior of we broken and lost sinners, Jesus Christ. Jerrell would not want the voyage of one of your lives to be bound in shallows and in misery; he would not want one of you to lose your ventures. There is only one way to die well, as Jerrell did. Take Jesus at the flood. It is a full sea. The current now serves. Today—Jerrell’s memorial day—is the day of salvation. Jerrell Wayne Lewellen, knowing and experiencing firsthand what heaven is, I know Jerrell would want you to lay hold of Jesus Christ—today.

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].

Wait Makes Weight: Implication or Explication in Creative Writing--Inkblots

Weary French Resistance fighter WWII

Inkblots on this warm, blue sky, green pasture evening, five die-hards this evening, including Hannah, for the first time, and we hope not the last, daughter of long-time Blotter, Dave. Rachel (who has been before but not read yet) joined us again this evening because she says she needs culture (I hope we don't disappoint over much).

John leads off--after grumbling about me making him re-rewrite the ending including all the sights, sounds, and, yes, smells of new life, baby in arms, in wonder that she could have ever considered taking this precious life--he leads off with a rereading of the last chapter, after multiple rewrites, where the protagonist in Saving Grace is delivering her baby, Grace. "I blurted," all in first-person point of view. How do you transition in the book when your protagonist is not the point of view? Remind me. I think you will improve this chapter enormously by going back through sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph looking for ways you can save the most weighty words and ideas for last. "Wait makes weight," as John Phillip Souza put it.

Rachel, the only mom in the room who has delivered a baby, felt that John had gotten most things accurately (thanks to John's careful research from his and my friend Michael, family practice doc who has delivered many babies over many years of practice). This is a redemptive story, where a girl gets pregnant, considers abortion, but through the loving kindness of many, she comes to this final chapter, through devious and anguished ways, to the point of delivering this baby, all alone. Rachel points out that the reader should be aware and affected by her loneliness in such a life-defining moment, delivering her baby, without a husband. The conclusion: she is now repentant; all is not easy and well, but she is doing the right thing. Dave pointed out that she would not be left alone for two hours during birthing.

A discussion of child birthing followed, only one mother in the room, but several fathers of multiple children who had been there at numerous births. We discussed implying rather than baldly stating something, for example, the young mother realizing that this was a living human being, a baby she had been planning to kill. How best to convey this without baldly stating it? We talked about the roles of doula.

Dave puts us back in context (after three years!), second civil war in America, futuristic story, the president of each division of the not-united states, are half brothers. Genetic engineering assassins, with cloning and other futuristic phenomenon. Each new metamorphosis increases the malevolence. Stephen, ten hours had flown by, try another verb maybe as time flying is somewhat cliché. Alexis is drugged in the elevator. Robert and Stephen are half brothers. Can you make more clear which of the brothers is the dominant perspective? Robert flexes his hands, but is Stephen seeing this and interpreting the meaning of it, or is it being felt by Robert? This sounds like a script for the screen. That's not a criticism, necessarily. Maybe it is vivid, visual. Do you have a virtuous character or one who is becoming so? I'm curious who is the protagonist, in the sense of good guy or woman? Is anyone confronted with the ethics of what is going on, morally outraged by the genetic engineering. It seems to me that Alexis is the character who is the redemptive one. That becomes more clear as Dave read on. I felt like there were some inconsistencies in some of her responses (Jerk).

John commented that he can't see anything, room, relationship of space. Include smells, sights, sounds, all senses banging. figure out ways to make the contrivance work, is it after hours so he isn't seen carrying Alexis over his shoulder, entering by service elevator. Make it work.

Hannah is twenty-one, Dave's eldest daughter, going to read a short passage, the first time she has ever read her writing out loud in front of others. Scotland, 1718. A good deal of detailed description of place and context. It seemed to me that you shifted from your female character to Jamie's perspective. Hannah explained that this is a shorter version of a longer passage. I applaud Hannah for having a healthy writer instinct to cut unnecessary words and give us the shorter version. One of the first things I do when self editing is to look for words that do not have work to do and kill them.

And now I must take my own medicine. I read chapter one of The Resistance (working title), B-17 pilot over occupied France in WW II. Some very helpful Inkblots critique, as usual. Shorten opening chapter (which I had been bothered by myself), and introduce nervous humor, different men trying to cope with the stress of air combat. Sample reading coming soon here on the blog...

Resolution and Mystery--The Writer's Dilemma at Inkblots

Inkblots gathering in The Scriptorium on a warm spring evening (the heat pump shifted to AC on its own volition), record breaking temp for Western Washington (not the highest standard of temperature, I realize that).

Rachel leads off with a return to her Russian cuisine yarn that makes me salivate, especially at all her descriptions of fine cheese. Trusov, the maître de of maître des. Narrative, fluid, delicious, specific details (Chanel no 5). I like it when you enter with confronting dialogue, a waiter confronting a presumed guest who was out of dress code, but he was an agent coming for government reasons. Short but very intriguing. Patrick comments about writing episodic, epic like, overarching story told in episodes, strong clash of cultures, starkly different elements, gesture toward the unopened door, the big story. He likes the epic feel of this story, following the cheese across Russia, gaining substance and steam as it flows, maybe, ages is the better word.

We discussed the incompleteness of a good story, per Flannery O'Conner and Tolkien, story's action is complete but there is still mystery. This side of heaven there is still incompleteness, mystery. The Bible reads this way: David's history ends but without contextual resolution. Something bigger is coming, more perfect, more wonderful, more complete. But even in Christ and the incarnation, there is a now and not yet element. Mystery and resolution still resides in the future.

Patrick has decided to stop working on the zombie book. Not to abandon the project but to get an editor and perspective on the work. So he is rewriting the graphic novel in conventional novel form. He is also working on a critique of modern Christianity in non fiction. But he decided to read from his work on the Mongol (pagan) and the Puritan (Christian). Drawing heavily from Babylonian mythology, names and cult. Does the opening serve as a prologue? Then you moved into an excerpt from ancient mythology. I hear your love of epic in this, especially the clash of cultures and starkly different elements. I felt this went from big and epic to specific, familial and warm, a good strategy. I love the way you make observations about history and the interaction of the powerful and the subjugated: Farmers are easier to tax.

Bob commented that it has a saga like tone, very suitable.

John's new last chapter, that Doug made me write. What a guy. Rewritten to include an actual baby, since the book, Saving Grace, is all about an unwonted pregnancy. A baby must appear, and be the instrument of changing everything. The interaction between the doctor and the mother seemed stilted. The labor and delivery nurse would do something at this point, reposition her, massage, something. What the doctor and the nurse are doing seems too vague. A moment of final suspense where the baby seems not to be breathing, her mother. And Rachel thought that having her say I was going to kill you, seemed too preachy. Have her stroke her soft cheek, kiss her forehead, show the reader the baby. Bob (Hemmingway) Rogland liked how John used very few adjectives and the simplicity of the narrative.

I finished off with reading three character sketches for my protagonists in The Resistance (working title), my WWII espionage historical fiction. I'm getting more excited about the research an preliminary writing on this companion novel to War in the Wasteland (set in then-atheist CS Lewis's platoon in WWI). How is it a companion, you ask? In The Resistance, the French and SOE agents received their coded instructions on BBC broadcasts. CS Lewis was the voice of faith in the war years on the BBC, hence the French Resistance would have heard his voice in all likelihood, and they certainly will in this account. So much fun, getting to choose the particular words they will hear throughout the various episodes of the yarn! Would you like to read an excerpt of the forthcoming WWII novel? Stay tuned to a forthcoming blog post and reading on The Scriptorium, my podcast at blogtalkradio.com/thescriptorium.