Here is a sample of the first chapter of this new action adventure book:
Private Svodoba
The Naked Truth
Winter 1944 - Jumping down from the train, we line up outside the military induction
center. The train station, done in polished oak, cut stone and glass, has historically
received the wealthy and powerful of Europe to the mineral bath resort of Bad
Ischl, Austria. The station has been converted to receive recruits headed for military
boot camp, which is located on the side of the tracks opposite the station.
This morning my school mates and I are part of two hundred and fifty excited
and apprehensive 14-year old boys from three Austrian middle schools. Anxious
and heroic, we are about to become soldiers in the war against the enemies of
the fatherland. Nervous laughter takes our minds off the deep snow around our
boots and the freezing cold of the morning.
A sergeant, stiff and
creased, appears and shouts orders bullying us into four ragged rows. We stand
in place tall and proud, feet together, skinny chests forward, our backs
straight as we were taught last year in the Hitler Youth camps. The sergeant
steps back inside the dull green colored building and we stand without
instructions for an hour. The windows of the one-story building with a snow
covered roof are blocked off with paper so we can’t see what is going on
inside. The cold wind dulls our enthusiasm a bit. Smiling and grinning at our
friends, we stomp our feet to help circulation and rock side to side sometimes
bumping into each other. A boy two down the row to my right is hit in the back
of the head with a snowball, and a shoving match breaks out knocking two of the
rows out of order. A kid somewhere down to my left has the nervous giggles and
eventually falls to his knees. Teenage excitement. As for me, I need to pee.
The door to the large
barracks-like structure opens with a bang against the outer wall and a
different sergeant, this one short with glasses and the stepped-on face of a
bulldog, struts out on the front deck and paces back and forth. His worn black
leather jacket is creased like his face, his dark olive colored helmet the
shade of his pressed trousers.
“Stillgestanden!”
(Attention) clips the sergeant. Dead quiet happens. My nerves are growing
tighter. I confirm my alignment out of the corner of my eye.
Turning slowly, the bulldog stares at us in
disgust clicking the heels of his long black boots. Squinting, as if fixing his
gaze on me alone, he stands and pounds his swagger stick over and over into the
palm of a leather glove.
“You will now undress!”
he shouts. “You will remove everything, fold your clothes and set them on top
of your boots. We will dispose of these items in the village. Those who survive
screening will be issued uniforms of the Wehrmacht, the greatest army in the
world.”
Already trembling in my
clothes, I turn and look down the row to make sure I’d heard the command
correctly. There is a moment of mutual hesitation followed by a flurry of
activity as we all stand in place and undress. Naked and shivering in the
freezing winter wind, the snow oozes between my toes. I am surprised at this
initial lack of civility. Finding the situation so bizarre at first as to be
amusing, some smile broadly and stretch their arms toward the sky then fold
them tightly against their chests. Most of us hold our arms straight down and tight
to the body, clasping our hands in front of our privates. Standing between Hans
and Karl, two friends from my eight-grade class at Halstatt, I sneak a nervous
smile as the sergeant goes back inside the building, letting the door slam
shut.
