Warning: This is not a young-adult novel. It contains violence, adult situations, language, and strong sexuality.
Waterfall ISBN-13: 978-0615633114 (MacRyan)
ISBN-10: 0615633110
Keywords: Chunnel, Eurotunnel, Channel Tunnel, Terrorism, Marine
Publication date: April 19th, 2012
BISAC: Fiction / Alternative History
paperback (6"x9") $10.55
(Don't ask me why this costs $10.55! Amazon sets the minimum price and I have no idea why this is almost as expensive as Poem y Granite! Get the ebook - it's a lot cheaper, saves trees, and there are no pictures or illustrations in the paperback anyway)
ebook: $0.99Back cover blurb:
In the mid 1990's trains began running underneath the Strait of Dover (also known as La Manche) between Britain and France. This is the purely fictional tale of something which never happened - non-historical fiction, if you like - and which we sincerely hope never will happen, not there, not anywhere.
Another major event involving the English Channel was The Battle of Britain which took place towards the beginning of World War Two. 'The few' were the heartbreakingly young fighter pilots on the allied side, not all of whom were British.
The many were the bombs which were dropped, not all of them on target; bombs which sunk and were buried, and which lay waiting, undisturbed....
Sample Chapter:
01 Rains of Bombs and 'Planes
On the night of June twenty second, 1941, even before the new moon had cleared the horizon, bombs were dropped which would echo into the 1990’s. It was shortly before Hitler made his disastrous decision to reverse the Nazi war machine and target the communists rather than the monarchy, at the beginning of perhaps the last serious raid on London before his Luftwaffe was press-ganged into the Russian campaign.
The Heinkel 111's of Kampfgeschwader 55 were hit heavily over the Strait of Dover by the Spitfires and Hurricanes of Eleven Group, Fighter Command, but such was the force of numbers of both bombers and fighter escort, a hoard of the bombers got through the initial onslaught. Most of the British pilots regrouped and turned their attention to these, but some who had more heart than smarts chose to ignore the twin threats of German firepower and the English Channel's chill waters, and began to chase some of the half-crippled night birds which had turned back.
Heinkel 813, though losing power rapidly, would probably have made it to France if it wasn't for this angry wasps' nest of Britain's not-so-few. The bombardier entered the first round of the `Let's Get Home' lottery by ditching his bombs. The plane almost bounced up from its empty belly. The few extra metres it gained nicely avoided an attacking Spit which was then aerated by a gunner in the Heinkel. The pilot of the Spit was picked up the next morning, having learned his lesson moist assuredly. No one seems to know what became of the Heinkel.
As for the bombs, several hundred kilogrammes of them, they fell into the Channel and sunk, en masse, to the bottom, where the combined action of wave and sand aggregated and covered them as the years surged by. Eventually, they lay undisturbed, masked by mud and crud until they were invisible. The initial corrosion on their casing effectively barricaded their innards from the salt-water. All were live; not one exploded, though the mechanisms were very sensitive. Some bombs rested precariously on their trigger.
They lay quietly, like good neighbors in a campsite, happy to keep to their selves. The digging of a tunnel underneath was insufficient to justify a complaint on their part; it was when another bomb started showing off that they took exception. And violently so.
