The Citizen Soldier
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
"The ‘Star Gazer’ went one better. He slid his right forefinger across his own throat to indicate what would happen to him if he were stupid enough to stand on the offending floorboard again. A suitably shame-faced expression was returned. He knew that the suggested threat was not an idle one.
Once all had entered the kitchen, the door was quietly closed by the member of the group that had not been so stealthy in the hallway, who then let out a nervous laugh. This immediately had the effect of the others putting their right index finger to their lips in unison, albeit they too were all now trying to suppress their own individual nervous laughter.
They failed.
A chorus of childlike chuckling escaped their lips. Closing of the eyes and biting of fingers followed in an attempt to overcome the overwhelming desire for a good old ‘guffaw’. Several seconds passed with four shoulders all moving up and down.
Once a modicum of control had been restored, ‘Mr Star Gazer’ whispered, ‘It’s in here,’ while opening up a cupboard which was on the immediate left to the sink. He then set about quietly removing a couple of cans of food and placed them on the sinks draining board. After reaching to the back of the cupboard, his hand came across the object he was looking for; an old faded red tin.
‘Here we go fellahs. Let’s see how the beer fund is doing, shall we?’ He whispered, raising the tin aloft triumphantly as if he had successfully withdrawn Excalibur from the stone.
His face was lit up by the moon shining in through the window giving him the look of ‘Dr Demento’.
After examining the contents, he looked at each of the other members of the group with a mischievous grin and whispered, ‘Nice to see some things never change.’
The stash was removed and quickly counted. After a brief moment of contemplation, he then reluctantly shared the contents out amongst the group members, ensuring he kept the majority for himself.
Half for them, half for me baby . . . WHOOP. My job, my stash. WHOOP."
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
The Citizen Soldier is a war story with a difference. Following a street fight, which results in his combatant’s death, Portsmouth born and bred Davey Dwyer is given an ultimatum. Either enlist in the American 101st Airborne, or go to prison. He chose the former.
After only a few days military training at Greenham Common, his plane is shot down over the Normandy Coast on D-Day and he ends up landing thirty miles from his intended drop zone, two miles south of Omaha Beach.
On landing, he his reunited with the now injured Major that recruited him, for his very own chilling reasons, and the only friend he had made whilst based at Greenham common.
With every effort being made not to compromise the surprise of the invasion, Dwyer is left not only carrying the Major to safety, but also finds himself fighting an enemy within the US Army and his own voice of reason.
The story then follows the exact timeline of the events that took place on Easy Red Sector with Dwyer and the Major hiding amongst the German positions witnessing the horrors below on the beach. Dwyer throughout makes a ‘nuisance’ of himself as far as the Germans are concerned and has further enemy contacts.
Dwyer’s initial euphoria of gaining retribution on the German enemy following the killing of his family in an earlier bombing raid, starts to turn into despair as a result of taking human lives and the horror he finds himself in the middle of. It makes him start to question his own actions and very sanity throughout his emotional roller-coaster.
The question of why he was recruited by the Major in the first place, to get him into the mess, is also at the forefront of his mind.
About the Author
A former County Table Tennis Champion at both junior and senior level, Mark Wilding has spent the last twenty years working within the pensions industry in the UK, latterly, as a senior project manager / consultant.
He currently resides near Portsmouth in England with his long-term partner and has two daughters.
His inspiration to create the ‘Davey Dwyer’ character came about when visiting the American Cemetery at Coleville-Sur-Mer, Normandy, France.