30 Day Wonders
by
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"All I first saw of Alice Emmerson was her legs and knees," Lambert told Rogan. "What? "The military car stopped right at the bottom of the plank," the third mate explained. "I was on watch at the top. "She got out, legs first. They were the most beautiful legs I ever saw in life. Real long legs, like a girl who dances in one of those musicals. Then she smiled up at me." "Smiled at you?" "That’s right. The deck lights on our ship reflected down on face. She looked directly at me and smiled." "She’s a good looker?" "You bet. Better than any movie star I’ve ever seen. "Then she followed Jon Vanderjagt up the plank. When she came near me I got a whiff of her perfume. It almost knocked me overboard. I knew then I was in love with her." Rogan laughed. "You fell in love? What about Dorothy, your wife? You’ve forgotten you’re a married man?" "Since Alice Emmerson came aboard I’ve been giving a lot of thought to Dorothy," the mate said. "I came to the conclusion that things that happen to me now are beyond my control. This war shoved us into an entirely new realm." "You sound a little nutty, but I’ll buy that," the ensign said. Lambert continued: "Look, we’re out here on a nowhere ocean, without any communication with wives, families, or friends. We’ve lost all contact with the world we used to live in. We haven’t heard from them since we sailed from San Pedro, and we won’t until we get back." "If we get back," Rogan corrected. "The fact is, when you go off to fight wars on land or sea, you have to play by their rules," Lambert opined. "And there’s not one damned thing you can do about their rules, no matter how crazy they are." Rogan shrugged. "Okay, you’ve rationalized that it’s all right to fall in love with someone else. But I don’t think it’s going to do you any good." "What do you mean?" "You forgot about that horny old first mate--you also forgot about me." "You haven’t even seen her yet," Lambert said. "But I will. And if she’s anything like you’ve described, who knows?"
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About the Book
On wartime assignment, Lieutenant Alice Emmerson, an army recruit with a romantic nature, sails on the ammunition ship Alamo Spirit across the South Pacific for Papua. The only female aboard, she instantly becomes the lustful target of ship officers, some of whom are ‘thirty day wonders’ like herself. To their disgust, Alice falls for Tommy Holliday, a happy-go-lucky, egotistical seaman. The two become intimate while trying to save the life of a dehydrated survivor rescued from a lifeboat found adrift in the Tasman Sea – and who is suspected of cannibalizing his boat companions. Promising to get together after the war ends, if they can make it out alive, their complicated romance continues ashore in Australia, and north to the New Guinea war zone, where fierce battles are raging on land and sea. "30 Day Wonders is a rare sea view of real people from all walks of life, swirling together in the tragic-comic vortex of international conflict."
About the Author
Born at Dewey Flat, Montana, Bob A. Ellison spent much of his youth in British Columbia. These were Great Depression years. After his father’s construction company failed, young Ellison worked as a deck hand on coast steamships. Soon after that he drifted to California, New York, and Florida – taking another look at the country in which he was born. He shipped out of New Orleans on a freighter as an able seaman and was returning from South America when World War II was declared. During the war he sailed the Pacific Ocean on merchant ships, and spent a short time in the Army. After the war he became a toolmaker and worked his way up into tool design and engineering. He has two children from a first marriage. He has now been married for 35 years to his second wife, Ann. They live in a California townhouse on a hill by the sea, where Ellison is trying to perform the magical trick of downloading memories of an age gone by to word processor disks.