A Hero's Passage

by J D Little

Genres: Space Exploration; Time Travel

Synopsis

What Price would you pay to live a dream?

Frank had spent his life daydreaming of being a hero but had always settled for the ordinary. Now in failing health, he believed all his chances were behind him. Then came the crushing pain and a blinding white light but instead of waking in Heaven, he finds himself sprawled on a cold steel deck deep in the bowels of a ship with his head busted open. Where was he? And how had he gotten there?

Crawling out of that dark hole, he found himself in the middle of a mystery, playing the part of another, an officer on a tramp steamer crossing the Atlantic during the height of World War II, carrying a cargo that might change the course of the war. Up against an unseen enemy known only as the Shadow, an enemy no one else even believes is real. Will he prevail? Or will he lose it all? And what about the pretty nurse with the hypnotic green eyes? Is she really the woman he had dreamed of all his life? Can he trust her with his secret?

Haunted by a line from a dream. "And now they all die!" He must find the answers before it's too late. He must save them all! But what price must he pay to finish --

A HERO'S PASSAGE

Reader's Favorite 5 Star Review:

“It felt like he was a child running wild in a library, but the shelves were all empty.” That’s what it feels like to lose your memory, to have it totally wiped, to remember nothing from your past, not even who or where you are. Waking up in the hold of a ship, Frank Ross finds himself banged up with a big gash on his head. Not only that, though everyone calls him either Frank or Mister Ross, and he learns he’s the chief officer of the ship, Frank is convinced he’s not who they say he is. For one thing, he’s not as young as he looks in the mirror, nor is he as healthy. But he doesn’t remember enough to figure it all out, to sort out the confusion. In fact, he really doesn’t remember anything. There’s mystery afloat, along with a woman who nurses his injuries, and there’s a battle plan in play, a shadow lurking behind every corner, for the ship he’s on is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, in the middle of the Second World War.

J.D. Little’s historical fiction time travel novel, A Hero’s Passage, is a compelling and engaging read exploring the whimsical aura of ‘what if.’ The plot begins with Frank in the future on what seems to be his deathbed. The dreams that haunt him and the pain that plagues him convinces him it’s the end. He slips into a world beyond reality, believing he’s died and gone to heaven. Only, when he wakes, he is someone else in an earlier era. It’s interesting how the author lures the reader in, leaving a big hole in discovering who this mystery man is when he comes to with a head injury on a ship during the Second World War. The author refers to him only using pronouns until the shipmates start addressing him and caring for his injuries. Frank doesn’t believe he’s Frank and the mystery of who he is and from what era baffles and confuses him as he confronts more mysteries on board the ship. Using the magical fantasy of quantum leaping through time, the author has woven a plausible tale of adventure, creating a hero out of one man who was merely trying to escape his pain and confusion in both the future and the past. A real page-turner.

 

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Release date: December 20, 2022

Publisher: Wyndmoor Press

Print pages: 290

Sample

CHAPTER ONE: DENIAL

The light was hard in his face, shining straight down from above, but the world remained black all around him. His head felt like it was splitting in two, the pain radiating out from the back, but that didn’t seem right. He seemed to remember the tightness and the pain being in his chest.

He tried to move, and though it seemed impossible, the pain swelled even higher, and he collapsed back into his cocoon of darkness.

He remained still, hoping for the pain to fade and his vision to return. Slowly, his eyes began to adjust to the sharp contrast between the light above and the darkness below. As they did, the world finally came back into focus, but it wasn’t the world he had expected. Instead of his comfortable living room, he found himself sprawled on a cold floor surrounded by huge wooden crates stacked high above him.

He craned his neck and tried to make sense of what he was seeing, but he quickly grew drained and surrendered again to the pain. His head thumped against the deck. The strange world around him exploded into a million pieces, forcing him to close his eyes to shut out the pain.

Where was he? How had he gotten here? He tried to remember what had happened and struggled to concentrate on his last memories, but nothing came. His mind was empty; his memories gone.

Fighting panic, he jerked open his eyes, and the world around him spun out of control. Then gradually, one of the nearby crates wavered into focus. He blinked hard several times, and a series of shapes stenciled in black finally stopped moving. He tried focusing his attention on them and slowly realized they were letters or numbers and decided they must mean something. Still, it was impossible to dredge anything up from his pain-wracked brain.

I should know this, he thought. He was sure they were words, simple ones even, yet he couldn’t decipher them. It was as though a fog had rolled in, blanketing everything that had once been crystal clear.

Then, as if someone flipped a switch, his mind snapped into gear, and he easily read the label.

American Red Cross, Medical Instruments

Destination: Liverpool, England

Gross weight: 1,252 pounds

Why in God’s name was he in a warehouse? He had been lying in bed when the pain started. He recalled the light flaring in the living room. It had seemed to be reaching out for him as if to claim him. Now, somehow, he was here. Wherever here was.

He tried sitting up. The pain flared again, almost forcing him back down into the darkness. He slowly slogged his way up through the pain, and finally, it receded to a tolerable level. He then tried to examine his surroundings, but his head began throbbing. It felt like it was about to burst, and he clamped his hands around his head, trying to hold the pending explosion at bay.

The pain gradually receded.

Finally, he recovered enough to start looking around again. He immediately noticed the floor was metal, as were the walls. And while he knew most warehouses had metal walls, he’d never heard of metal floors.

Blinking into the light above, he saw it wasn’t a light at all. Instead, it was a large square opening in the ceiling with the clear blue sky beyond.

What kind of warehouse has a hole cut in the roof?

“But maybe this isn’t a warehouse after all?” he mumbled aloud.

His eyes picked out a few cumulus clouds drifting leisurely across the sky. It was a beautiful day. The opening was at least thirty feet above his head. That’s awfully high. Then he noticed a second deck about two-thirds the way up. A deck? Why do I keep thinking of it as a deck instead of a floor? Decks are on ships.

More importantly, why was he lying in the middle of the deck in pain? What could explain that? None of this made any sense. The last thing he remembered was sitting with his daughter-in-law—doing what? Damn, he couldn’t remember!

What the hell is going on? Did I have a stroke? he wondered. “It could be a stroke.” But in a warehouse? Why am I in a warehouse? And how did I get here? He recalled looking for something. That can’t be. I don’t even belong here. How could I be looking for something? Maybe it’s just a bad dream?

That’s it. He was dreaming. He was now talking aloud to keep himself calm. “Pinch yourself and wake up.” He tried it. “Ouch.” He shook his head, and another wave of pain engulfed him. “Crap! Don’t move your damn head,” he scolded himself.

This was no dream. That pain was too real.

He suddenly remembered seeing fear in a pair of brown eyes. That was real, too. Nothing was making any sense. Start with the basics, he told himself. If this is real, how did I get here? But more importantly, how do I get out of here? He suddenly realized he couldn’t see any windows or doors.

With a growing sense of fear, he reached out for the nearest object, the crate marked Red Cross, and using it as a crutch, he levered his way to his feet. His head once more felt like a toy top, spinning around, and all he could do was hold on. He knew if he let go, he would splat against the steel walls.

Bit by bit, the spinning slowed, and the world steadied. He once again felt the bedrock beneath his feet, or maybe that was the wrong term. He could feel the ground moving and realized with a start that he might be on a ship!

Looking around, he noticed a pattern in the walls. They were flat panels, not corrugated, like most warehouses, and they overlapped with lines of rivets holding them together. It looked exactly like the Titanic in those old movies.

They don’t build them like that anymore, he thought. “I’ve got to get out of here,” he whispered.

He finally spotted a ladder over on the far side of the compartment. If there were no windows or doors on this level, he would just have to try another. He started moving toward the ladder—or at least that was the idea—though he only managed to get a few steps past the Red Cross crate before he had to stop. He leaned hard against another pallet his eyes refusing to focus, the world once more spinning out of control.

“Just breathe. Slowly now, one, two, three,” he counted, forcing himself to relax. His vision eventually cleared, and a pool of bright red came into focus on the floor at his feet. That couldn’t be blood! Could it?

“Oh, my God,” he croaked, and his right hand flew to the back of his head. “Ouch!” He pulled his hand away, and it was covered with the same red color. “Damn.” No wonder he felt like shit. It was a miracle losing that much blood hadn’t killed him. He chuckled softly. It sounded different from how he remembered his laugh, lower-pitched. It had to be the acoustics.

“Now for that ladder.” Even his voice sounded a little odd, now that he thought about it.

Pushing himself off the pallet, he staggered toward the base of the ladder. He came up hard against it, bumping his head as he did so. He was starting to get a little better at this moving around—well at least he didn’t almost pass out this time.

Leaning back, he looked up the twenty feet or so to the deck above. Could he climb that far without losing his balance? Doing that would put him right back down here, maybe with a broken neck, this time.

Was that it? Yes, it had to be. It explained his headache, the blood, the back of his head. He had fallen from up there. Damn! That’s a long way down.

He tried to remember falling, but it was still a complete blank. It felt as though it had happened to someone else. Everything from sitting in his living room until he woke up here had vanished. How long ago was that? An hour or a year? He had no idea. Why was he here on a ship and not in a hospital? The only thing he could remember was those big brown eyes filled with fear. Who was she? It seemed he should know her, but he couldn’t even remember her name—much less his own, for that matter!

He panicked as he realized he didn’t know who he was.

He searched his memories. It felt like he was a child running wild in a library, but the shelves were all empty. All the books were gone. His entire life wiped clean like the blackboard in a classroom at the end of the day.

All he could remember was that woman’s eyes and the pain. Oh, God, that pain, shooting out from his heart. It felt like an elephant was standing on his chest, but that was wrong. The pain was in his head, not his chest. He suddenly felt the impact, the lance of white-hot pain exploding through the back of his head.

He moaned, a long low sound filling the compartment around him and reaching to the open air above. “Is anyone up there?” he cried. “I need some help. Please, help me.” God, please let there be somebody up there!

“Someone, help me, please,” he shouted as loud as he could. But no one answered. No one was about. Where in the hell was he? Where could all the people be?

“I guess I’ll just have to do it myself.” He was having a full-blown conversation with himself. He’d heard that was a sign you were losing it. “Well, who wouldn’t be?” Yup, he was losing it.

He grabbed the rung of the ladder just above his head and took his first step up. One step at a time, he thought to himself. He started coaching himself. Take it easy. All you have to do is just take one step at a time.

He climbed a second rung and glanced down at the deck below. It was working. He took another step and then another.

Too fast! A wave of vertigo hit him. His left hand slipped off the ladder, his arm beginning to windmill as he fought to keep his balance. Then, just as quickly, the dizziness vanished, his strength returned, and he grabbed hold of the rung again, steadying himself. He pulled himself tight against the ladder, hugging it to his chest, his heart racing.

Closing his eyes, he thanked God for small favors.

He reminded himself to go slowly.

Keeping his eyes level, he climbed one more step, giving himself a break afterward. Yes, that was what he needed, a pause between each step, time to recover from the effort, and for the spinning to slow down a little before he attempted the next rung.

Even with those precautions, he began to grow worried, for, after each step, it took him a little longer to recover. Longer for the spinning to slow and for his strength to return. How many more steps are there? He didn’t dare look to see, afraid of losing his grip again and ending up back down on the floor.

Then his eyes cleared the edge, and he peered out over the upper deck. Thank God! He wrestled himself up and over that edge and onto the deck, where he laid still for a moment to catch his breath.

Standing, he turned to face the compartment and slowly studied it from this new angle. It was vast and nearly empty, unlike the deck below. He guessed it was at least fifty feet in each direction with steel walls on all four sides. He realized this was the ‘tween deck,” called that because it was between the deep hold below and the main deck above. From here, he could see that the lower level was almost full of wooden crates arranged in neat stacks rising to just short of the underside of the deck on which he stood. A few narrow passages had been left to allow for some movement between the rows of cargo. He was in a hold, the crates were cargo, but don’t they ship freight in steel containers? So why all the wooden boxes?

He noted that the level he was on was only half as tall as the lower one, but it had the same large hatch overhead. Only a few crates had been stacked and braced on this level, and he somehow knew that was why the hatches were still open. There was more cargo coming.

Then twenty feet away to his left, he saw what he was searching for—a hatchway. It was the standard naval type, metal with latches (or dogs, in Navy parlance) in all four corners and a knee-knocker below. Knee-knocker, now that was a naval term. Where had he learned that one? Not too many would know what it was, but of course, anyone who ever caught their shin on one would never forget it. He had to be on a ship. But how had he gotten here? And how had he ended up at the bottom of a cargo hold? Hell, it had been years since—since what? Since he—Damn it! He almost had it! Shit! It was gone again. Everything was blank once more. The fog thick as pea soup.

But still, for some reason, this place and everything around him seemed familiar. As if he had been here before, and yet, he was also sure he didn’t belong here. How could that be? Familiar and not? As though he was two people.

He took a deep breath, tried to steady his nerves, and pushed off the rail, swerving his way across the deck in the general direction of the watertight door. ...