A story of time travel ... of love and hate ... of truth and lies ... of war and peace ... of choices and consequences.
In this romance book for teens and young adults, 17-year old Kathleen finds herself whisked 60 years in the past to the scene of a famous battle outside her town of Middleford. She also finds love and romance. Now she must choose between life in the past and life in the present.
Excerpt:
Kathleen looked up at her grandfather with shining eyes. “Tell me again, Grandfather. Tell me how you saved the day.”
Grandfather pulled on his pipe slowly, deliberately. Then he laid it down on the side table and began. “It was a bitter battle we were fighting. It seemed no matter how many of the enemy we killed, fresh recruits would just keep pouring in. Meanwhile our side was getting beaten, and badly. Most of our men were holed up in Sick Bay. I suppose if they had had the energy they would have been rooting for us.
“Well one day the bugle sounded bright and early, and there we were, all of us getting ready to charge into battle. We were lying in the trenches, ready to pull out, when all of a sudden there came a sound. I peered above, and there was a man, coming staggering towards us.
“He was dressed in our uniform, and at first I thought one of our men had disobeyed orders and gone charging out ahead of the rest of us. But I didn’t recognize him any, and all of a sudden I smelled a trap.” Grandfather tugged on his hair in excitement as Kathleen listened breathlessly.
“I could see that he was injured. Either that or he was faking it pretty good. But I wasn’t about to take any chances. ‘What’s the word, Comrade?’ I said to him. And he mumbled something out, but it wasn’t anything like the password, and all on a sudden I knew my hunch had been right.
“Of course I didn’t quite understand what the trap was, but it was a gut feeling. So I jumped right out of the trenches, with my fellows bawling at me about just where in heck I thought I was going. But I didn’t pay them any mind. I figured there’d be time enough later on to explain it all. That is, if I didn’t get caught in the trap.
“So I jumped out and grabbed the man, and I start pulling him back towards his side, which lay a good five hundred yards away. Well, even though he was injured, and now I could see that he wasn’t faking it, he had lots of fight in him, and he started putting up the biggest kind of opposition so as I wouldn’t pull him back, you see.
“But I paid him no mind and I just kept on dragging him. Mind you, once in a while I’d have to give him a piece of my mind, if you know what I mean (and here he winked at Kathleen), then he’d stop struggling for a while, and it would be smooth going after that.
“At one point the dirty hound pulled out a little hand dagger he had concealed somewhere on his person, and stabbed me in the calf with it. That was painful, I can tell you. I stumbled and fell, feeling as though I’d gotten the biggest charley horse in Christendom. I held my leg and I all but screamed with pain.
“I say I all but screamed, because I didn’t want to give the enemy any notion that I was coming their way. I forgot about the pain in a mighty hurry though, when I saw that dirty scoundrel trying to double back after all that work I’d had dragging him up to that point.
