Alice's Soldiers Read online

  Alice’s Soldiers by Robert T. OShea

  Copyright TXU 2-064-101 August 06, 2017

  Print ISBN 978-1-54395-931-4

  eBook ISBN 978-1-54395-932-1

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental. All names and locations are fictitious.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Introduction

  This novel is about a Princess named Alice who was born blind and can only see when her Prince a baby named Robert is near. As babies, they lived in the country called Brooklyn, which seceded from the city of New York, in 1947. Soon it became apparent these tiny children were from a world of Kings, Queens, and Castles. This novel tells you why they are in the new Country called ‘Brooklyn?’

  Second Chance Soldiers guard them. These men and women were scheduled to die in battle or by natural causes but didn’t. Someone or thing gave them a second chance to live. This novel tells you who and why they got another shot.

  I don’t understand how the Earth could spin around at over a thousand miles an hour, and I don’t fall down.

  My name is Robert; I love Alice Marie DeVan. Chasing her is my passion, protecting her is my life. Alice has been blind since birth. I never mentioned it, and I never intend to.

  Chapter One

  Second Chance Soldiers

  It is not right for some to perish before their time. For example, a sixteen-year-old soldier who never got a chance to do anything except die. In this novel, the soldier doesn’t die.

  The Cobblestones were slipperily forcing the two young girls to hold hands so they wouldn’t fall. They were wearing ‘Nanny Uniforms,’ making their Mother the happiest person in the town, of Manchester, England. The taller one said, “Don’t worry I will always be next to you,” while the shorter, cute one said, “Did you see that O’Brien boy, staring at me?”

  “No,” said the taller sister gigging, I saw “An ordinary looking fellow standing in donkey poop.” “Great, mom will not only be able to see your new boyfriend he can now smell him too,” said her sister.

  It was the year 1916, Maggie was standing by the new Post Office, in Manchester, England watching with delight as her two daughters climbed onto the bus to Liverpool. The girls were scheduled to leave on a Ship to North America during the evening.

  Their mother, Maggie was watching her children while trying to hide her grin because the condition of her teeth was humiliating. A few of them were chipped, and none of them were as bright as a smile wanted. The youths, Janet and Emily,” declared they would write the minute they got on the Ship.” The girls graduated from Norland College, with honors thanks to their mother and an unknown beneficiary. They were immediately hired by a Noble to take care of his two children.

  A postal clerk, Maggie’s friend Rose, came out of the Post Office to also watch the girls. Rose was loud, she didn’t mean it, but she was embarrassingly gaudy, screaming at the top of her voice “Goodbye Emily goodbye Janet be careful of those handsome American boys.”

  The girls wore warm new overcoats. The Norland school supplied their uniforms. Their outfits were a mark of achievement because the School was the best in the world in training young girls on how to take care of babies. With its light brown woolen blouses trimmed in dark brown borders and long fitted skirt ending in dark brown boots, the uniform turned everyone heads. Especially the name Norland calligraphy on the uniforms’ breast.

  Maggie was thinking about her girls; the tall one was named Emily after her aunt. Laughing to herself, she thought “That Emily would end up marrying to a noble because she was so smart and careful in her ways. A strong pretty face with a surprisingly cute smile, that one did not forget.” While her sister Janet “was the opposite, beautiful, aggressive and a little bit of a tease, like my mother her namesake.” Maggie said, “God knows who she would end up with?”

  Although the distance between the two cities was only 100 miles, the highways were dangerous due to poor or no upkeep, ancient age, and the unknown. Some smaller bridges went back to Roman Inc. Maggie didn’t want to think about it. The old bus did break down a few times on its way to Liverpool, but the girls were so excited they could have cared less, and their mom had put enough food in their bags to kill a horse. A woman named Violet (With a sign) would be waiting for them at the bus terminal in Liverpool. After dinner, she would take them to their ship.

  Their mother, Maggie somehow using pure willpower, moved her young family out of the coal mines to a city that had hope. Her brother found a one-room apartment near the center of Manchester for them. Her mother had died and left Maggie some money. With her inheritance and the money, she had somehow put aside; they moved to the cold-water flat. What made Manchester so incredible was its free Grammar School system. A very rich and powerful Englishman had granted a fortune to the city for a free boys grammar school with the best teachers. Therefore the town’s women forced the men to open one for their young girls.

  Shortly after starting classes, the School administration advised Maggie and her husband that their “Girls have a beneficiary who will pay for boarding and, a monthly allowance that will give the children more time to study their occupation, nursing. The beneficiaries plan on hiring the girls upon graduation.”

  Maggie husband, Branden found employment as a Postman while she scrubbed floors part-time for the rich. More than once she was astute enough to return the coins, she found left under the carpets. The wealthy people loved to scatter a few cents under a rug to catch a poor slob stealing.

  Janet and Emily as mentioned earlier found employment promptly when they graduated from school. The school specialized in midwifery, prenatal care, delivery, infant care, and nursing babies their future employers were a Princess and a Prince who resided in North America. They gave them new clothes and overcoats. Their girl’s salary started when they received two puppies to take care of for the noble family. The baby’s father wanted the do
gs to guard his children as they both grew up.

  A year earlier, Maggie’s husband Branden joined a soldier battalion with his pals from the city’s Post Office (Pal Battalion). It was near the end of the ‘War,’ and the British needed additional volunteers to slaughter. The money wasn’t too bad, and if he remained in the Army, his spouse could go with him. Their physician told him that moving Maggie to a sunny, and drier climate could be important for her health.

  Meanwhile, Private Branden and his Post Office Pals’ Battalion were about to attack the Germans at the battle of Somme. They had trained for a year before they were transferred to Northern France to prepare for trench warfare. The Allies artillery barrage started on a Monday morning and continued nonstop for two weeks. The bombs were concentrated on the German’s position and the no man’s area between the German and the English lines. When the English High Command decided that everything was dead in the enemy position, the attack order was given.

  Harry and Fred, Branden friends, were excited as he was about attacking the Germans in the morning. Harry told, “a gathering crowd of soldiers that this fight was a lock because our long-range batteries have been plastering the Germans positions for weeks.” Fred said, he heard from a pilot that there is nothing alive between the Germans in the English lines so what’s the big deal, let’s go get the German Beer. The Englishmen were given a few pints of beer that evening, so it wasn’t an utterly horrible night. The men laid on the frozen ground waited to die.

  Before Maggie left for home, she went into the Post Office and asked: “Rose, if the mail from the front line had arrived?” Maggie had already passed around twenty women who were standing in front of the mail center waiting to ask the same question. Rose said, “No honey the mail was running late, but not to worry everything was going to turn out alright.”

  Maggie had to rush home and get the puppies ready to leave. A lady named Elizabeth contacted her and said, “She would be at her flat around six o’clock to pick them up. Maggie knew the dogs were brother and sister. At night they slept on top of each other and the family though, that was adorable. The female cried when she saw the young girls packing last night, so Maggie held the small female puppy in her arms this morning as she did some light housekeeping. Maggie stopped for some flu medication to fight her cold. She had thanked “God” that her husband and daughters were not at home, because the “Black Death was not only coming it was here.”

  Maggie planned on going to bed, “Because she had a few beautiful day-dreams to work on, like her husband walking down the street in a parade with his buddies singing on how they beat the Germans. Also, soon she would be receiving letters from the girls describing their great adventure, and the encounters with a few good looking boys. Maggie’s husband getting in their bed would be the best thing that could happen to her. The second thing would be a few pictures of the children with the Royal babies.”

  Thank God Maggie missed the mail drop from Liverpool. Because the mail contained twenty-seven letters from the ‘War Department’ addressed to various inhabitants of the City of Manchester, England. The mailing reported the murder of their Husbands, Siblings, Fathers, and friends.

  “The German’s killed every member of the Pal’s Postmen group from Manchester. Twenty-seven men were shot dead, on the first day of battle. Their horror stories were over in minutes. They never got to discharge their weapon or even to see the enemy. The Soldiers didn’t have a chance; they prepared for months for nothing. The (Pal) friends sang songs as they died in a stupid, stupid march into the fog.”

  “The English boys climbed out of their trench, as instructed when they hit ‘No Mans Land’ they found an eerie hell of dead bodies and unexploded shells. The place had a deadly quiet to it: no wind, no noise like they just stepped into a silent movie scene. “The only fear that had been hammer into their head was to make sure they keep pace with the soldiers to the right and left of him. Even when he was shot dead, his only worry was that he lost a step.” “The English boys from Manchester, England perished without seeing their enemy, but the formation held. As they died, another band of soldiers replaced them. They too perished, then another, and another.

  “That night at the portable (Travels with the battle) country club, the soldiers of the command staff were beaming about how magnificently their troopers died. It was said, “That almost no one broke formation unless they had to tiptoe over a deceased soldier or step over an unexploded bomb. There were many toasts to the brave Englishmen who died today during the Germans defeat.” It will take years for these men to realize that they were brainwashed and the Germans were not defeated that infamous day and they were responsible for thousands of young soldier’s death.”

  Fifty feet behind the large tent the officers were celebrating in; twenty English troopers were drinking themselves into unconsciousness. They had been told “to clear the battlefield of the English dead. They used wooden carts to remove the bodies. The privates filled the carts with dead bodies and pushed them into a staging area located in the rear of the Engish lines. They emptied the carts into a pile of bodies and then return to the battlefield to pick up some more. They did this until it was too dark to proceed. The soldiers were physically and emotionally exhausted; it took a few years, but eventually, every one of them went mad.”

  “No one said anything, including the newspapers. On the first day, sixty thousand soldiers were murder by the Military Command’s utter stupidity. Fifty percent of the bombs fired at the enemy were found to be duds. The next day the English tabloids could only shout about a ship out of Liverpool being torpedoed, with all its passengers missing.”

  Two women were waiting for Maggie when she showed up at her apartment. She unlocked her door and “welcomed them in; two jumping puppies met them. A few family pictures and some handmade dollies holding local souvenirs dominated the oversize, heartwarming room. The women sat down at a small table. Elizabeth found one of her girls scarf, forgotten on the floor; Maggie picked it up with a tear in her eye and a sigh in her throat.”

  The beautiful woman introduced herself as Elizabeth. She said, “this is my Mother Lily.” They had stopped by to pick up the two puppies for her son, who were play fighting, but stopped when Lily walked up to them. She said, “Kids we must get our stuff together you have to go home for a while.” A few toys and two small dog beds were collected and placed in a carrying bag.

  Elizabeth said to Maggie “Here the money we owe you for taken care of the dogs and a small bottle of medicine from my Doctor for your cold.” If you don’t feel good tonight, “please take some.” “Now tell us how your children weathered leaving home for the first time?”

  Over a cup of tea, they had a good laugh how happy the children appeared to be leaving a one-room flat for a suite on a major cruise ship while trying to tell their mother they wanted to stay in Manchester.

  Lily remarked, “how neat and tidy her apartment was.” Maggie answered with laughter saying “its only one room.” The two visitors said goodbye and kissed her on the cheek and hugged her. Both Lilies seemed to be crying when they left. The male dog couldn’t wait to go on to a new adventure while the female wouldn’t.

  Maggie “picked her up kissed her and gave the dog to Elizabeth.”

  Elizabeth “held the female puppy and baby-talked to her as she left.

  Maggie somehow got the fire going in the small stove. She got ready for bed, drank the little potion of medication Elizabeth gave her. As she lay in bed, she day-dreamed about: her daughters looking over the Ship’s railing out at the boundless ocean and her victorious husband marching home in a parade from the war.

  As Maggie was falling asleep, she had to double check the dog’s sleeping pillow because she swore, she heard the female puppy snoring.

  Chapter Two

  The Country of Brooklyn

  Alice’s story takes place in a Country called Brooklyn. During the early Fifty’s a kid in Junior High S
chool, P.S. 162, Bushwick, Brooklyn, NYC, turned in a homework assignment suggesting the possibility of Brooklyn becoming a ‘’State,’’ based on the premise “That no one likes us.” The teacher agreed (She lived in Queens) and dispatched the one-page handwritten paper to Washington DC for their opinion. The Government formed a committee. After two days of consideration, they asserted that:

  Nobody likes anyone or anything in or from Brooklyn, NYC.

  The people (That no one likes) spoke an unknown language (Maybe Alien).

  Many linguistics who tried to speak Brooklynese failed. These scholars were so despondent on their inability to accomplished, such a simple chore they either hung themselves or cut out their tongues. Therefore, since no one can comprehend what the inhabitants are saying; thus, making their speech impossible to translate or sometimes even to record.

  In conclusion: Brooklyn’s lost souls packed their few possessions and walked to Queens. The remaining souls became homeless “Brooklyn Dodger fans,” who were forced to beg for food from the tourist boats and dove for coins thrown by the visitor’s little fat kids. There was a rumor that one passenger fell off a ship and was eaten by a local man, a Mr. Nathan.

  There were few assets left in the land known as “Brooklyn.” The New Yorker’s took most of them; with little value left in the new Country, it was hard to stay there.

  The New York State and Washington, D.C. politicians agreed, with the Government’s findings. They have hung this extensive and expensive research project, with its definite stated conclusions up in the ‘Hall of the Brooklyn Congress,’ which was in a Coney Island Bar.

  A special commission (Two Women) declared that the landmass known as Brooklyn was a toxic territory. They turned it over to the Navy for bombing practice and deadly chemical testing.

  Within seven days the people of Brooklyn fought back and made the following changes:

  “Brooklyn” became a new Country. The President of the new Republic was Jackie Robinson.