I'm proud to join the blog tour for Scott Bury's new book,
Under the Nazi Heel. The sequel to his successful
Army of Worn Souls, the new book promises to be a true page-turner. Be sure to check out the excerpt at the bottom of this post...
Under the Nazi Heel
Walking Out of War, Book 2
For Ukrainians in 1942,
the occupying Germans were not the only enemy.
Maurice Bury was drafted
into the Red Army just in time to be thrown against the invading Germans in
1941. Captured and starved in a POW camp, he escaped and made his way home to
western Ukraine, where the Nazi occupiers pursued a policy of starving the
locals to make more “living space” for Germans.
To protect his family,
Maurice joins the secret resistance. He soon finds the Germans are not the only
enemy. Maurice and his men are up against Soviet spies, the Polish Home Army
and enemies even closer to home.
Experience this seldom
seen phase of World War 2 through the eyes of a man who fought and survived
Under the Nazi Heel.
About the author
Scott Bury just cannot
stay in one genre.
After a three-decade
career in journalism, his first published fiction was a children’s story,
followed by an occult spy thriller. The Bones of the Earth, his first novel,
crossed the boundaries between historical fiction and magic realism. He has
also published spy thrillers and two police procedurals set in Hawaii.
Under the Nazi Heel is
the sequel to Army of Worn Soles. They describe the real life experiences of
Maurice Bury, a Canadian living in Ukraine during World War 2.
You can find all of
Scott’s books and other writings at his website, The
Written Word.
Read his
blog, Written Words
Find him
on Facebook at Scott Bury Author
Visit his Amazon Author page
Or follow
him on Twitter @ScottTheWriter.
Under the Nazi Heel
Excerpt 1: From Prologue – Attack on the Train
Down the train, doors opened in every passenger
car and soldiers and officers climbed out. Men asked “What happened? Why did
the train derail? What happened to the engineer?” Officers asked “Any injuries?
No? Weapons ready?” Soldiers formed a defensive line, weapons pointed into the
forest or toward the lake, but they had trouble holding their rifles and
machine guns over the top of the snow.
At the engine, the first two soldiers to come
out of the train began to climb the ladder to the engineer’s compartment. The
first soldier knocked on the door.
He was answered by a rifle shot from the forest.
He arched his back and fell into the snow, knocking the man below him down.
More rifle shots came from the forest, hitting
the officers first, then the soldiers with submachine guns. The Germans
returned fire blindly. They could not see their attackers and their bullets
went uselessly into the trees.
Fire came at the Germans from all sides. Some of
the men in the snow tried to climb back into the train but they were cut down,
shot in the back. The moonlight turned the blood black on the snow.
A burning torch flew out of the forest, turning
end over end to land on top of the first passenger car. Made of steel, it did
not burn. But more torches flew, aimed toward the open doors. Most bounced off
the sides of the cars and fell into the snow, snuffed.
Then an explosion blew off the rear of the last
car and the Germans knew their attackers had grenades. They tried to hide
between the cars or under the snow, but one by one they fell. More explosions
came from under the train, and then someone managed to pitch a grenade into one
of the doors. Smoke followed the muffled bang. Within a minute the men outside
could see flames, and they knew they were dead.
One soldier fired his submachine gun in
controlled bursts from a hiding spot between two of the cars, but bullets found
him. Before his body hit the snow, a comrade took the gun from him and fired a
continuous volley into the woods until he was hit three times from different
directions.
Beside him, the junior officer who had tried to
warm his hands fell with a bullet in his upper thigh. Blood gushing into his
long coat, he raised his pistol to his head and blew his brains out before the
partisans could take him.
The whole train was ablaze by then. Soldiers
jumped out through windows and doors to be killed by more bullets. Within
minutes, it was over. All the men outside the train lay dead in the snow, while
those in the train screamed as they burned.
Under the trees, men in black uniforms watched
carefully. One man shot a German body, just to be sure he was dead, and then
the insurgents stood up. In twos and threes, they got into sleighs hidden in
the woods, slapped the reins and returned along the paths they had made when
they had arrived, hours earlier.
The only sound was the muffled steps of their
horses in the snow and the soft roar of the fire, and soon only the fire was
left.
The Ukrainian Insurgent Army had begun
operations against the occupying Germans.