THIS BOOK HAS BEEN SOLD
A FEW GOOD MEN
William Overgard
St Martin's Press, 1988., VG/VG-. First Edition. A 1-inch tear & a fair amount of creasing to dust jacket, which is in mylar protector. A phone number is written in ink at top of front flyleaf. Book otherwise clean & tight. 356 pp. Excerpt: "In March of 1931 Augusto Cesar Sandino, the man who gave the name Sandinistas to his army of rebels, kidnapped the American consu l's thirteen-year-old daughter in Bluefields, Nicaragua, on the Mosquito Coast. Curiously, he was in the company of Calton Wills, an American correspondent from *The Nation*. Probably at no other time in history was there such a gathering of real Am erican heros. General Smedley D. Butler--the nation's old hero, two-time winner of the Medal of Honor--was on a 'farewell tour' of the area and immediately began pursuit in a Packard automobile. With him was Lt K.L. Magnusson, the young Marine who had personally shot and killed Charlemagne Peralte, the Haitian *caco* bandit. To the west, Capt "Chesty" Puller, later famous for five Navy Crosses, was commanding the infamous Company M. Above, in the first use of Marine aircrat in combat, Lt C.F . Schilt was to win the Medal of Honor at Quilali. In the next desperate weeks their lives would converge as the big car pushed on. Driving was the consul, Richard Kelly of the well-known Boston family. Also on board was a German doctor, a sixteen- year-old Marine music boy and a *Miskito* Indian, Tomas. At Rama, a mining town on the Escondido River, there was a stiff fight with the retreating Sandinistas and they rescued Karen Sven, a Norwegian whore who promptly fell in love with Magnusson. Never mind romance, earthquakes, and train chases, the rescue party would follow Sandino right into his legendary mountain stronghold, El Chipote. And on they went, a few good men...." EXCERPT: "At that moment there was a shout and they saw t wo cars approaching fast from the edge of the yards, dodging around the obstructions. One had a red light and siren going. 'Oh my God,' Sabar said. 'It's that damn *policia* back with a friend! Into the boxcars! Hurry!' and they climbed aboard even as the engineer pushed the throttle ahead, sending back a jet of steam. Wheels spun, caught, and the train moved ahead, the sixty-nine-inch drivers beginning to pump. Puller cranked the Buick around until it was parallel to the track and began pu rsuit, the Packard coming up fast behind him and to his right. They zigzagged around the upright block signals, missing poles by inches, veering shaply by sidetracked cars and sending passengers bouncing wildly as they hit the washboard edge of ties and closed on the train. In the back of the Packard, the general shouted over the roar of the engine and gravel rattling under the fenders, 'Music, give them a burst! We're going to run out of yard!' Standing and bracing himself against the windsh ield frame without glass, the music boy clacked back the loader on the submachine gun and pulled the trigger as Magnusson had taught him. The line of fire reached out past Puller's Buick, to beat out a pattern on the rear of the caboose . His aim had improved since the Rama drive and he took out the round, rear windows sending glass flying, tearing up the tongue-and-groove oak siding and whanging off metal parts. As the general predicted, they ran out of yard, coming up against a trestle abutm ent as the track passed on across a swamp. Brakes locked, they slid up to a dead end as the train gathered speed, accelerating on. The line of fire from the Thompson dropped off like a hose losing water pressure. In the next instant Puller had reve rsed, shouting through the window as the Buick whipped past, 'We'll make up a train and follow!' 'That young man is irrepressible,' General Butler said, before he could catch himself." [Increasingly difficult to find] .
$37.50
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