An Uncommon Task

By Gordon Davis

Jeff, an unassuming young man with little enthusiasm for his job, seeks adventure wherever he can find it. Coincidentally, on one of his monotonous lunch breaks in a local park, he encounters one of the most curious situations he has ever seen. His interest is piqued, and he follows a camouflaged man into the deep swampy recesses of the park. This one encounter sets off a chain of events that lead to an adventure of a lifetime. With courage, bravery, and endurance, he demonstrates uncommon valor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664167063

Gordon Davis

Gordon Davis was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in 1978, and served in the US Army for 30-years. During his career, he served in various command and staff positions collimating his career as a Military Intelligence Officer for the US Armys Surface Deployment and Distribution Command. He retired in 2008 as a Colonel. Colonel Davis received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Industrial Management from the University of South Alabama, a Master of Arts in Land Warfare from the American Military College, and a Master of Arts in Strategic Studies from the Armys War College. He is also a graduate of the US Armys Command and General Staff College and of the Army War College. He is a War Time Veteran having served in Operation Enduring Freedom. Since 2008 he has been doing field research and prepublication writing. He is also the author of Twelve Wooden Soldiers.

Book preview

LUNCH TIME NOVELS

Lunch Time Novels are short, concise, and easy to comprehend novels written, so the reader can start and complete the novels in two-to-three sittings. The length of the novels does not compromise the plot or lessen the characters’ contributions to the story-line. The novels are filled with enough intrigue, twist and turns to keep the reader riveted and wanting to read more.

1

The wind blew cool from the north, I believe. A gray squirrel searched for food under a mighty, budding southern oak, and the sounds of a wood duck loomed and echoed in the background. This was certainly the place for one to while away a drowsy lunch hour. Could spring be far away? The last few days of February were grudgingly holding on to the last remnants of Old Man Winter and gradually leaching out the sights and sounds of an imminent spring. A cool sleeting rain had just died off, and a bright sun was beginning to peer from behind the gray of the disappearing rain clouds.

The park was starting to fill with activity. A game of basketball could be heard on a distant court. The constant rhythmic sounds of the bouncing ball with the vocal approval and disapproval of every player permeated the air, indicating a very happy crew of participants.

The little squirrel I had spied earlier mustered up the courage to venture closer. An old, discarded, ant-infested french fry appeared to be his quest. After reaching the french fry and snatching it away from the ants, the gray squirrel snacked slowly on the fry as if trying to savor every bit. One could only imagine what a treat this must had been when a squirrel’s usual source of food was nothing more than dried yellow acorns.

In a nearby field, a father and son were challenging each other by kicking around a football as if it were a soccer ball. Father and son were laughing, pointing, and half-heartedly chasing after the ball. They seemed to be bonding well. While scanning the rest of the park, I suddenly, for some unknown reason, stopped and was curiously drawn in the direction of an old overgrown nature trail that led into the marsh surrounding the park where a bald man was emerging. In haste, he headed directly to a black sedan and tossed an item of unknown origin into the back seat. He literally jumped into the driver’s seat, cranked the car, and sped out of the park, destination unknown. The sound of his car soon merged with the sounds of the other cars on the nearby highway.

Now more and more visitors were entering the park. After a few cars passed by my lunch spot, I identified the same black sedan with the same bald man returning to the park. I watched; the man quickly parked his car in the same location as before. When he exited the car, the item previously tossed into his back seat now appeared in his right hand. A good old gander at the object told me it was a single-lens reflex camera with a telephoto lens. From experience and use of a similar camera, it was easy to tell that the lens was a 150mm, pretty common for that type of camera. Although easily identified by his bald head, the man was now dressed head to toe in camouflage. Before he left the park the first time, he was dressed in old blue Dickies work clothes. It was funny how you’d notice things like that. Once, he jetted down the trail and disappeared among pine saplings, budding oak trees, and swamp olive shrubbery. Out of all the things going on in the park, the activity of this one patron caught my interest more than any other. What could he be up to? I wondered what the bald man could be photographing. Since he was in the park, it was natural to think it was the wildlife.

Well, observation time was over; it was time to head back to the office. It was so enjoyable to come to the park; it was a real break from the hectic office. This little park on the banks of the Gulf marshes had been a haven away from the crowded, smoky office lunchroom for some time. Back to work, I thought.

The next day, I arrived at the park a little later than I did yesterday. There had been a rainstorm causing some slow traffic and heavy vehicle congestion around the park. The closeness of the park to the local grass marshes and Gulf beach areas, which virtually surrounded the park, allowed for some low-level flooding, but my old lunch spot was unaffected. As I sat down and scanned the area, the oddest sight caught my attention. The same car that I saw yesterday was parked in the same location. I had been coming to the park for months, and except for my car, I never saw the same car in the same location two days in a row.

I bravely decided to take a stroll over and get acquainted with the driver. Maybe we could be lunchtime buddies. As I neared the car, I heard voices bounding up a trail that led down into the grassy marsh. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but the voices stopped my pursuit of the car’s driver. The voices were muffled, making it hard for me to understand what they were saying, so I turned my attention once again to the car. Approaching the car, I could see no one was in it, and there didn’t seem to be anything unusual about the vehicle. Turning away from the car, I once again became attracted by the utterances going on down the old marsh trail, so I decided to venture in the direction of the voices.

The trail twisted and turned, and the elevation dipped and rose at nearly every step. Roots and snags protruded from the ground, adding to the difficulty of maneuvering down the old eroded footpath. Branches that hadn’t been trimmed for a long time hung thick, causing me to weave through the denseness. It was obvious that the track was seldom used. The closer I got to the marsh, the thicker and leafier the thicket became. Finally, solid ground gave way to a spongy bog.

The indistinguishable voices and the eerie, icky overgrown trail seemed to foreshadow what was coming next. The multiple voices I thought I had been hearing in one location now separated, with one voice near my location and the other some distance away. I slowed my pace and was easing around each bend cautiously, taking a few steps, stopping, listening, and then repeating myself. I was not sure what I might walk up on, but I was sure of one thing: I didn’t want to surprise anyone on the trail or have anyone surprise me. As I eased around one bend, I saw a man talking into a radio. I had not been noticed, so I backed up next to a large clump of cattail reeds and parted them enough to view the man. I was now close enough to hear him plainly. Tango, Mike, Alpha, One, Niner, Niner, this is Bravo, Zebra, Foxtrot, Seven, Seven, Seven. Do you read me? was repeated twice by the man. He was obviously using military-type communication call signs. It was apparent the man was trying to verify he was talking to the correct person on the other end of the radio. If I was right, a validation response would quickly return. As I predicted, the call was returned with a similar response. At this point, I was not sure what was going on, so I tried to make myself even more invisible and listen more intently.

I kneeled down and tried to blend in with a sparsely leafed huckleberry bush just beginning to bud. I kept my eyes fixed on the man as I moved around and tried to get situated. The man was once again in camouflage. The camouflage was not doing the man much good. He was standing on a small sandbar that was covered with white sand. He actually stood out like a sore thumb. These little sandbars were not uncommon in the marsh. As the waters flowed down toward the Gulf, they carried a lot of silt, which piled up on every curve in the marsh. The marsh was saw grass and did not grow very tall. From nearly any vantage point, one could see for what seemed to be miles. When the wind blew, the saw grass waved like it was wheat, giving the marsh a farm-like feel. As I watched the man, he continued to talk on the radio, stopping only periodically to peer through a pair of cat-eyed binoculars. These were some pretty powerful binoculars, and they were called cat-eye because they could be used at night. They absorbed the twinkling of the stars and moonlight to enhance visibility during periods of darkness. It just so happened I had a pair just like them.

It wasn’t hard to recognize what the man was peering at, for the only thing of any interest was an old boarded-up plantation home on the only high ground in the marsh. Years before the marsh converted back to its natural saw grass, coastal farmers in the late 1700s tried to grow rice in the marsh. Due to season after season of stormy weather that destroyed every crop and mosquitoes that spread disease, they finally gave it up. The house now stood only as a reminder of the dismal failure of the rice farmer. The house was occupied off and on by poachers, hunters, trappers, and fishermen; but recently the house was purchased from the ancestral owners. It was to be refurbished and turned into a park icon. It had been rumored that a person entering the old house would fall back in time and lose all knowledge of the present.

As excited as I was to find out what the man was up to, concealing my presence instantly became more difficult. As I knelt down to shorten my silhouette, I was reminded of my bad knee. The pain was awful and shot from my lower to my upper extremities. The longer I knelt, the worse it got. Soon I couldn’t endure it any longer. As I started to stand, I noticed a flash of light from a window of the plantation house. That halted my rise and startled me, for the light was as bright as if it had been flashed in the pitch-black night. Getting more anxious for answers, I forgot all about my leg pain. Once again the man keyed his radio, and a long coded message was sent.

Next to my kneeling position was a sharp drop-off that I had inadvertently not seen when I initially crept into this more concealed area. The drop-off fell straight down for about six or eight feet and then gradually tapered off, sloping gently down into a marshy lagoon that backed up for two or three