The Bullet Garden

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I can track this book to an exact moment. Sometime in 2018, Barrett Tillman and I were exchanging bits of sniper lore via email. Barrett, by trade an aviation/The War historian, told me that Omar Bradley was so enraged at German sniper predation in the Normandy campaign in July 1944, he ordered captured Feldgrau marksmen executed on the spot. Cooler heads talked him out of it.

In that nanosecond I saw a book. In another nanosecond I calculated that, by my own accounting, Earl Swagger was “available,” having survived Tarawa and not yet arrived to Peleliu. I had long wanted to get back to Earl and The War, as anyone who lived in the forties and fifties would call it. That he was a Marine sergeant and not an Army officer I saw as a challenge, not an obstacle. In a third nanosecond I saw how I could knock off some unfinished business from a story I had written in 2010 for Otto Penzler called “Casey at the Bat.” Not bad for three nanoseconds.

What happened next? Damned if I know. Possibly I drifted off, possibly some mandate from Big Publishing changed my course, possibly it was rejected by somebody. But it was gone with the vapors. Then, in 2020, I’m sitting in my friend Gary Goldberg’s backyard with cigars and bourbon and two friends from Pennsylvania, Dave Dunn and Tony Clements. What would be my next book? They all wanted to know — and so did I.

Out poured The Bullet Garden. It arrived from Annex B-19, Cavern 11, Tunnel R-4, of the Hunter subconscious, where it had been frozen solid in pristine condition, shrink-wrapped and dense as a boulder. Thawing it on the fly, I was amazed how well my friends responded and how well I responded. We all agreed, especially me, that I had to do it.

Publishing action was called for and my agent, Esther Newberg, adroitly got me out of one deal and into another, this time with Emily Bestler, whose label goes forth under the auspices of old friends at Simon & Schuster. Superb work all around. I only hope I have equaled it.

I should say that I am fully aware that if the book is a sequel to “Casey at the Bat,” then it is also a prequel to my very first novel, The Master Sniper, published forty-three years ago. I am also aware, if anyone cares to remember a relic from so long ago, that the joinery between this book and that is far from perfect. Leets’s wound, as an example, was far more serious in that one. And I think he had a new girlfriend already. My hope is that if this book succeeds, someone might be interested in publishing something entitled The Master Sniper: Fixed Up Real Good, meant to get Steve’s War in accord. That would be so cool!

You may notice a few more-vivid-than-usual turns of phrase. These are almost certainly pinched from the great correspondent Martha Gellhorn’s The Face of War. (The Germans looking like “some kind of dead vegetable” in the field after the night attack on Dog 2–2 is my favorite.) I asked my great friend Lenne Miller to read The Face of War and highlight especially vivid images. He had no problem finding them. I also pinched Rick Atkinson’s close-in description of the hedgerow from The Guns at Last Light. As well, Rick, an old Post colleague, answered questions on the bocage campaign for me.

As well, I got a lot of uniform and equipment questions answered by consulting the busy online colony of World War II reenactment fabricators, who definitely know the difference between 1943 and 1944 SS camouflage patterns (as do their customers). Believe me, they are folks who live and breathe this stuff. I even bought an M41 field jacket, cool enough for jeans and a sweater in a bar. AttheFront.com is the one I recommend.

Otherwise, the usual suspects pitched in. Gary was great on lots of computer issues and arranged for the manuscript to be formatted and assembled by Brooke Hart. Jeff Weber, the great Jim Grady, Dave Dunn, Bill Smart, and Mark Keefe of NRA performed as usual to my great benefit. Barrett became my go-to man for dozens of arcane issues (the personalities of Francis Gabreski and Robert Johnson, for one). Mike Hill, who actually knows something about cricket, kept me from appearing too ignorant on the sport. And Ed DeCarlo, of On Target Range, provided excellent early intel on the Swedish M-41.

I also must thank Professor Rob Fitzpatrick, of Australia’s University of Adelaide, a leading authority on forensic soil analysis, for help not with this book but with Basil’s War. Production requirements prevented acknowledgments in that one, and Professor Fitzpatrick is owed even belated recognition.

Professionally, Esther, Emily, and Emily’s associate, Lara Jones, got it all turned into an actual book. And Otto, of course, set everything in motion by commissioning “Casey at the Bat” for Agents of Treachery in 2010. And my wife’s coffee, as usual, got me awake and kept me awake. It was prepared even as she flourished in her own career as the great Jean Marbella of the Baltimore Sun.

As usual, these fine people are free of blame for errors, foolish decisions, follies, and misunderstandings, which are the sole responsibility of the proprietor.