WWII historical fiction Book Excerpt for Down a Dark Road
Excerpt Pages and Chapter: pages 10-14, chapter 2
Excerpt: “Come on,” Jim said to his sleep-groggy sergeant, “we got a mission. The captain’s gone missing. No one’s seen him since yesterday. Get the Jeep. We need to find him.”
Bowerman stood, farted loudly, and pulled on his gear. “Any idea where he went?”
“Yes. He went in search of Richard Wagner’s house. But I don’t know if he made it. The city was still a hot zone when he took off. For all I know he could have been wounded or killed or even taken prisoner. We have to find out.”
“Yes, sir. I stowed the Jeep in a garage about a block from here. Be back in five.”
The two men began their quest, winding through the narrow streets of Bayreuth. The detritus of battle—shattered glass, chunks of concrete, twisted metal—littered their route. Bomb craters pockmarked boulevards and sidewalks, and smoke from burning buildings drifted through the city. At least the fighting had ceased, and army MPs patrolled the streets and stood watch at major intersections.
Bowerman drove and Jim navigated. Not that he had anything to navigate by. They stopped and asked an MP if he knew where Richard Wagner’s home was. All they got in response was a shrug and a “Sorry, sir.” They tried again at the next big intersection and got a similar reply.
Bowerman suggested asking a local, if they could find one. In short order, they did—an emaciated elderly woman sweeping glass off the sidewalk in front of what likely was her home. It still stood, but displayed shattered windows from street level to its third floor.
She appeared alarmed as the two soldiers approached, but Bowerman calmed her down quickly, explaining in German they only wanted directions to the Richard Wagner house.
She nodded in response, then gesticulated incessantly as she babbled on for almost a minute, seeming to point generally toward the south. At least that’s the way it appeared to Jim.
“Vielen Dank,” Bowerman said when she had finished.
Jim fished a Hershey bar out of his field jacket and handed it to her. She dissolved into tears and kept repeating, “Segne dich, segne dich.”
“She’s saying Bless you, bless you,” Bowerman explained. Jim nodded at the lady and smiled.
“Did she know where Wagner’s place is?” he asked his sergeant.
“She was talkin’ pretty fast and I didn’t get all of it, but I think we have to head southeast until we find a park called Hofgarten. The guy’s home should be adjacent to that, on the east side, it sounded like.”
Jim and Bowerman set off again in the Jeep, picking their way through the debris-strewn streets and lanes until they found the park. It had not fared well. Broken trees and shell craters gave silent testimony to the fighting that had gone on there.
“There’s a sign over there,” Bowerman said, and pointed toward the edge of the park.
They drove to the sign. The post it was mounted on leaned at a forty-five-degree angle and the sign itself, wood, had been charred, probably by an exploding artillery shell.
Jim saw a reference to Wagner Haus on the sign. “Must be in that direction,” he said, and gestured toward a cemetery just beyond the boundaries of the park. On the far side of the cemetery sat a battle-scarred stone house, large and stately, but wounded.
“THAT’S GOT TO BE IT,” Jim said. “Let’s see if we can find our way to the front of it.”
Bowerman steered the Jeep through passages partially blocked by downed oak trees and, here and there, the bodies of dead German soldiers. Eventually, the two Americans reached a long, narrow lane, lined with shell-shattered trees that led to the front entrance of the home. The house, though still intact, had taken a brutal beating. Broken glass and huge chunks of stone littered the ground all around its perimeter, legacies of repeated bombings. The facade of the once lovely structure appeared as though a vengeful giant had taken a sledgehammer to it.
Bowerman pulled up to the front steps, but the entrance to the home was blocked by fallen timbers and piles of stones.
“Turn off the engine,” Jim said.
The sergeant did and they sat in the Jeep and listened. And they heard Wagner. At least someone playing his music on a piano. The two soldiers stared at each other. Bowerman rolled his eyes.
“When, sometime later in life, you remember the bizarreness of war,” Jim said, “remember this day. Let’s drive around to the side of the house and see if there’s an entrance there.”
They found a doorway with the door blown away. Adjacent to it sat an empty US Army Jeep.
“Wait here,” Jim said. “I’ll go in.”
He mounted a set of steps just inside the doorway that led up to the main floor of the house. In a dimly illuminated corner of a what he presumed to be a parlor, the captain sat at a huge Steinway, its top strewn with empty champagne bottles. With his head tipped back and his eyes closed, he ran his fingers deftly over the keys of the piano. Jim had no idea what piece the captain might be playing, but the notes echoed off the bare walls of the bombed-out home in melodious resonance.
Jim walked to the captain’s side. “Sir,” he said softly, “it’s time to get back to headquarters.”
The captain opened his eyes and looked at Jim, but kept playing. “Jim, it’s wonderful to see you. Have a seat. Enjoy the concert.”
“Captain, I think—”
“No, no. No talking. Listen. You’re hearing Wagner in his own home. Imagine. How many people are ever afforded that privilege?”
Jim didn’t view it as the captain did, a privilege, but as dereliction of duty. He worked to tamp down his incipient anger.
“Captain, stop.” He laid his hand on his company commander’s shoulder. “We were worried about you. We’re going back to the hotel. And I mean now. Please.”
“You don’t understand, Jim. This—” he stopped playing, lifted his hands from the keyboard, and made a sweeping gesture around the room “—is the most glorious day of my life.”
“Time’s up, sir. For you, the day is over. We’re still fighting a war. You can come back here after everything settles down, after the Germans surrender.” Jim placed a hand under the captain’s armpit and gently hoisted him off the piano bench. “Sergeant Bowerman’s waiting for us in a Jeep outside. He’ll take you back to headquarters. I’ll follow in the Jeep you brought.”
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Synopsis
Down a Dark Road transports readers to the shadowy forests of WWII Austria, where a weary and battle-worn Army platoon is about to discover the war’s darkest secret…
As the war in Europe draws to a close, young Army lieutenant Jim Thayer finds himself and his platoon on the point of the American advance into Austria. Jim and his men are no strangers to the horror of war. But what they find hidden in the forests of Western Austria is beyond anything they have yet experienced.
Battling remnants of the legendary Waffen SS, Germany’s elite fighting force, Jim and his men come face to face with the cruel brutality of the Nazi regime. And bear witness to the fields of death left in its wake.
Determined to hunt down the architect of this atrocity, Jim dispatches an unofficial team of unlikely allies—an American bomber pilot, a German Luftwaffe fighter pilot, and a young Austrian woman.
The war may be ending. But for these strange comrades in arms, the final battle has only just begun…
In Down a Dark Road, former Air Force officer H.W. “Buzz” Bernard plunges readers into the final dark and bloody chapter of the war, as they follow Jim and others into the true heart of darkness. Buy Now on Amazon
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