Work in Progress

I'm just about completing my first novella in

my Lifespan Trilogy:

Embarking:1941 - 1951

Here we are about halfway through the novella. Lou has arrived in London home from four years in a military prisoner of war camp in Germany.

'...In the early weeks of his time in the hostel Lou gets into the habit of turning out every morning and wandering the streets - not quite exploring, but throwing himself into the tide of city street life and seeing where he comes ashore.

He gets into the habit of taking his board and sheaf of papers, finds a place to sit and concentrates on seeing and drawing people who crossed his path. Survivors all, he now thinks. In  drawing them he manages to avoid contact with them and concentrate on them at the same time. Now and then, after drawing a person Lou will follow them to their bus stop to see where they are going. Islington. Camden. Holloway. City. Whitechapel. 

This is a world, not just a city. A whole world. A universe.

One afternoon he follows two men: one heavily built with a flowing coat, the other smaller and narrowly built, wearing Cavalry twill trousers  and a neat trilby over a mane of startling silver hair. The men gesticulate as they walk and talk. Lou lengthens his step to get closer to them, to hear what they are saying.

He follows the men up an alley into the side entrance of a public house, crowded with noisy people, most of them standing three deep at the bar. He wrestles his way through them and buys himself a half-pint of cloudy beer. He spies an empty corner table and sits down, taking his board and papers from a deep inside pocket and placing them carefully on the stained table, not unlike the table in the middle of Hut16 in Stalag Eden...'

Hope it is catching your interest...