A DEEPER LOOK, PURSUED: TEN KNIGHTS ON THE BARROOM FLOOR, Mel R. Jones

Talk about a page turner! I thought I’d just take a peek into the book midday but found myself halfway through it after having been unable to put it down. Ten Knights is a well-written, intriguing, compelling novel that held my attention hour after pleasurable hour, each new chapter a powerful magnet drawing me forward to an intricately developed mystery. I couldn’t wait to find out how all the complicated threads would tie together.

The characters are psychologically well-drawn and fully real, the plot is exciting and the detail—military, medical, historical, geographic—is so well researched and spot on with documents and actual history which demonstrate that a scholar created the story. I loved weaving seamlessly between time periods and places, between the World War II past and the 1970s with the history and sociology accurate and believable to the extent that I almost come to think that the story really happened, and I was reading some pretty exciting non-fiction.

The quality of this novel reveals a perfectionist, a philosopher, a genius at the craft. Every chapter from the very first held me unable to walk away. New clues to the unfolding mystery were offered when least expected, so I was constantly surprised and delighted. The characters’ feelings, motivations and back stories were compelling, fully real to me, all worth knowing, and I cared about them. I wouldn’t have wanted an editor to shorten a single page because I didn’t want their world and my reading pleasure to end.

I believe that Ten Knights will stand the test of time.  Beyond the sheer adventure of the read, the novel demands discussion. One wants to explore the intricacies of the mystery itself, the writer’s craft, the accurate history with its military, sociological, philosophic and psychological insight, the whole concept of war and peace, whether between opposing tribes on a remote island, or between the participating nations of World War II, or today. A central message is found in the story’s sundial, “One hour alone is in thy hands, the hour on which the shadow stands.” Every character can be studied from this point of view, and every reader will find this idea to be a truth worth exploring.

Finally, beyond plot and character, here and there an image stood out with a touch of beauty, such as this description of the mountains, “Their purple peaks appeared like amethyst crystals reaching for the last bit of sunlight of the day.” That image and others will stay with me the way a poem can tattoo itself upon one’s memory. Mel R. Jones writes like a painter and thinks like a sage. What a pleasure to have come upon his book!

HSK, August 16, 2018

[avatar]Marian[/avatar]

A DEEPER LOOK, PURSUED: TEN KNIGHTS ON THE BARROOM FLOOR (from the notes of Mel R. Jones and from facts gleaned from Wikipedia article, “Consolidated B-24 Liberator”)

Weapons of war of each era of human history have varied according to the technology developed and available in their times, ascending in the scope of their destructiveness as the ages roll on, until we now find ourselves in the nuclear era.  And the paradox of humans seeking peace through war continues, this time with the possible consequence of mass destruction to the earth and its inhabitants should World War III occur.

Mel R. Jones’s novel looks back at the yesteryear of World War II, a time when B-17 and B-24 bombers were the mainstay of the U.S. strategic bombing campaign in every theater of operations and in every branch of the American armed forces and several Allied air forces and navies.

Jones’s book focuses on the B-24 bomber flown in the Southwest Pacific, specifically a fictional B-24 crashed on Mount Bosavi in the Southern Highlands District of Papua New Guinea in 1943 and not discovered until 1973 by the Australians.  A deadly mystery with threads of global intrigue surrounds a more recent crime scene found inside the fuselage of the crippled aircraft in the land time forgot.

Jones’s narrative takes us inside the crew’s ill-fated mission as reported in logs found by the U.S. Army remains recovery team, headed by physical anthropologist Dr. DeAnn Toland, camped between two antagonistic native tribes at the crash site.  Joined by forensic pathologist, Dr. Emerson Stanek, the investigative team not only pursues what happened there and searches to find any possible remains in such a remote jungle mountain area, but also finds that the pathologist becomes the pursued as the mystery of the crime scene unfolds.

The B-24 bomber of Jones’s novel is representative of the incredible 18,000 B-24 bombers built by the U.S. by September 1945, making it the most produced American military aircraft in history.  Yet, ironically, of those that survived the war, only a few restored operational B-24s are flying today.  The most well-known are the B-24 A-configured aircraft named the Diamond Lil from the Commemorative Air Force collection, and the Collings Foundation’s Witchcraft, the only restored flying B-24J in the world.

On July 21, 2005, author Mel R. Jones and his son Mark took a “trip back into yesteryear” when they enjoyed the thrill of a flight in the Witchcraft near Racine, Wisconsin. First-hand they felt the experience of B-24 crews of the past who called the B-24 the “Flying Boxcar” for its spacious, slab-sided fuselage built around two central bomb bays in a forward and aft compartment.  A centerline ventral catwalk, just nine inches wide, was a drawback for crews if the need to move from fore to aft during a mission was necessary.

When the Witchcraft was on the ground, the Jones father-son team, as well as bystanders, were allowed to explore the interior and see the positions of the crew, which could include ten men. The pilot and copilot sat next to each other in the cockpit, a navigator and bombardier in the nose, the radio/radar operator and flight engineer sat sideways and adjacent to one another behind the pilot and four crew members were stationed in the waist at various gunner positions.

Another interesting sight for the Joneses was the size comparison of three aircraft lined up next to one another on the tarmac at the ride site.  These aircraft included the B-17, the B-24 and the C-130 cargo aircraft used today, and the C-130 overwhelmingly dominated the former two WW II aircraft in size.

Noted in comparing the B-24 to the B-17 was that the B-24 had a shoulder mounted high aspect ratio Davis wing—a thick wing that allowed increased tankage and more lift and speed than the B-17, but the Davis wing was more susceptible to damage and ice formation.  Four supercharged radial engines were carried by the wing of the B-24, while twin large oval vertical stabilizers were mounted on the ends of a rectangular horizontal stabilizer, making the B-24 bomber easily recognizable. The B-17 had only a single stabilizer.

The B-24 was characterized as cold and drafty and difficult to fly.  Neither did it help the pilot that the B-24’s tricycle undercarriage landing gear with the main gear extending out of the wing used differential braking and thrust for ground steering, making taxing difficult as well.  But the longer range of the B-24 bomber made it more useful, especially in the war in the Pacific, than the B-17, which was eventually phased out as WW II progressed.

The name Liberator for the B-24 was given by the Royal Air Force, but its many versions were produced at five plants in the U.S, initially by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. At peak production, one was created every hour with 650 per month at Ford’s Ypsilanti Michigan based Willow Run bomber plant, which produced half of the 18,000 B-24s alone. The B-24’s unit cost was $297,627 ($4.95 million in today’s dollars).

Consolidated Aircraft designed the B-24, which was one of the heaviest aircraft in the world at 59,524 pounds maximum takeoff weight, and it carried up to ten machine guns.  Also used in antisubmarine and maritime patrols as well as radar/electronic warfare, the B-24’s use in strategic bombing lasted from 1942 until 1945.

Jones’s novel weaves the ambience of the World War II era and its lost B-24 bombers and crews into his complex, multilayered tale. It features the primitive, exotic but lethal jungle environment of New Guinea as cross cultural interaction there occurs between four nations—Americans, Japanese, Australians and native Papuan—during WW II.

The well-crafted and interwoven story of past and present plunges the modern investigators into the primitive/civilized situation of the earlier era, now threatened by a mystery spanning thirty years.  They must walk in the shoes of their predecessors in order to recover possible missing remains and/or survivors of the B-24 crash and to discover the hidden threads of intrigue inherent in the crime scene inside the wreck. Will their survival depend upon becoming the pursuers instead of the pursued? Of all the lost B-24 bombers in WW II, Jones’s fictional, mysterious B-24 bomber is sure to captivate your interest!

[avatar]Marian[/avatar]

A DEEPER LOOK: PURSUED: TEN KNIGHTS ON THE BARROOM FLOOR (from the notes of Mel R. Jones and additional research)

Well, first of all, we need to differentiate between four common types of mystery fiction, such as the detective story, the horror story, the adventure mystery and the character or literary mystery. Combinations of these types is possible, but usually one classification predominates over the others.

One of the most familiar types of escape fiction is, of course the detective story, or the whodunit puzzle that must be pieced together by the detective in order to discover the hidden identity of the murderer. Sherlock Holmes may have used deduction and intuitive skills to solve his cases, but modern detectives use the help of science and its technicians. It’s the most intellectual and the least emotional of all types of mystery fiction. For example, in English detective novels, mental activity can even dominate action, such as in Agatha Christie’s characters of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple.

The horror story is the direct opposite of the detective story because its appeal is emotional, passive, filled with fear, apprehension and terror. Its purpose is to bring the dread to an end somehow, as the hero is chased, fearing what will happen to him/her if the horror catches up, such as in Stephen King’s The Shining, or It.

The adventure mystery, such as a spy novel, is a combination of the previous two types of mystery fiction, appealing to readers’ identification with the danger of the central character, but the solution of the puzzle serves a larger end than mere personal safety. There is an important mission to be accomplished or protected and uses both the pursuit plot of the detective novel and the trap technique of the horror story. Notable examples include The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre or Six Days of the Condor by James Grady.

Finally, the character or literary mystery is the most variable of the four forms. Although the solution of the puzzle is important, it also includes the psychological aspects of the characters and the modes of their societies.

This type of mystery novel is the closest to real life situations and characters. Aspects of the previous types of mystery fiction are finite, and can become repetitive. However, the human nature element offers an endless variety and the widest scope for an author’s talent, imagination and understanding.

It produces “borderline” mystery fiction that can be enjoyed by a broader audience than the previous three types mentioned. Examples include Mystic River by Dennis Lehane, In the Woods by Tana French, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, or in the past, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Rebecca by Daphne De Maurier, or more recently, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.

What elements of Pursued: Ten Knights on the Barroom Floor by Mel R. Jones lend themselves to a “literary mystery fiction” classification? First of all, it is complex, multi-layered, and intricately woven, containing a story within a story. A cross-cultural tale about war with an intriguing mystery and a touch of romance, Jones’s novel features characters of four cultures—American Japanese, Australian and primitive natives—who are caught up in the conflict experienced in World War II in New Guinea, a land that time forgot.

The contrasts between the civilized and the primitive, the past and the present in the novel are not only interesting, but also intriguing. When a B-24, which had crashed into a remote interior mountain of New Guinea in 1943 is discovered in 1972, a U.S. Army remains recovery team and the investigator of a crime scene there camp between two antagonistic primitive native tribes. They try to bridge the cultural gap between their two worlds in order to secure native help, notwithstanding the language barrier, in conducting the search for remains and for clues of what happened there thirty years previously.

Mortui Vivis Praecipiant, “Let the dead teach the living,” comes into play as the characters have to walk in the shoes of American airmen from the downed B-24 bomber and those of Japanese survivors from their bombing raid to find the answers to the story, all the while plagued by a mysterious pursuer of the past, with ties to international intrigue, who threatens their own survival.

There is much for a reader to enjoy in the rich, full-bodied depth of this “literary” mystery novel, a tale of yesteryear whose secrets weave a deadly web in the present.

Reference: Rodell, Marie F. Mystery Fiction, Theory and Technique. New York, NY: Hermitage House, 1952. Print.
[avatar]Marian[/avatar]

A DEEPER LOOK: PURSUED: TEN KNIGHTS ON THE BARROOM FLOOR (from the notes of Mel R. Jones and additional research)

Did Germany’s aggressive expansionist takeovers in Europe encourage Japan’s desire to capture and control areas with needed raw materials in the Pacific? If so, Japan would first have to take into account significant deterrent forces that could thwart their aggression.

Japan entered the Second World War when they attacked the United States Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941, and crippled it. This first step in establishing their “Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere” was undertaken so they could seize Malaya, the Netherland East Indies, the Philippine Islands and an outer defensive perimeter of other islands.

Early Japanese successes exceeded expectations, and they thought a negotiated peace would ensue, but instead the Americans prepared counteroffensives.

Meanwhile, Japanese “victory disease” led to overconfidence, and they embarked on an even larger plan to expand their defensive perimeter to include seizing Australia as well as other islands to protect their “flanks.” New Guinea was among these islands.

Japanese attempts to conquer New Guinea by sea failed in the battles of the Coral Sea and Midway. So next, the Japanese tried the overland route. Landing on the northern coast of New Guinea, the Japanese Army established bases designed to support other offensives. U.S. Military commitment to the New Guinea Campaign came in support of the Australians in the defense of Port Moresby, New Guinea.

The Japanese 18th Army was directed to move to New Guinea from Rabaul in the Northern Solomons and establish headquarters at Lae on the northern coast of eastern New Guinea in March 1943. But the Allies cut Japanese communications, attacked supply lines and bases and stopped their reinforcement of advanced positions. So by early 1944, eastern New Guinea became a secondary holding front with the primary front now in western New Guinea.

The ten crew members of “Ten Knights on the Barroom Floor” B-24 bomber in Jones’s fictional tale were part of the Allied offensive against Japan’s invasion of New Guinea. Their ill-fated flight in December 1943 was part of a 23-bomber formation that left Port Moresby, New Guinea, flying northwest to their target of Boram Airfield in Wewak on the northern coast. A row of corrugated steel buildings along the northern edge of the base was believed to house aircraft and engine repair shops.

Their leader, Colonel Rogers, warned that the Wewak peninsula bristled with every aircraft defense imaginable, with enemy fighters which would outnumber Allied fighter escorts by a rate of five to one. Low cloud cover conditions almost guaranteed some bombers would get separated from the top cover fighters and the rest of the formation.

After dropping most of their bombs on enemy anti-aircraft emplacements protecting the airfield, our ten man crew’s bomber was hit by flak and number two engine caught fire, but the pilot and copilot soon had the wing up, propeller feathered, mixture throttle closed, and ignition, fuel and generator off.

At first they used their three good engines to keep them in a tight V formation at number five position, but soon they couldn’t keep up and lost sight of the formation in the poor visibility.

They remembered Colonel Rogers admonition the evening before. “Gentlemen, forget the myth about bomber crews, that ‘we work for Uncle Sam en route and over the target, but after bombs away, we’re unemployed.’ But stay employed! Get back here the best you can. God speed!”

What happened next to the crew in their partially disabled bomber is the stuff of countless tales in the New Guinea Campaign, both historically and fictionally in Pursued: Ten Knights on the Barroom Floor. Would these brave “knights” achieve their mission of helping to bring about peace through war and survive? Or would this paradox once again prove to be unsustainable for themselves and for the nations on earth as time rolls on?

Reference: Prefer, Nathan. MacArthur’s New Guinea Campaign. Conshohocken, PA: Combined, 1995. Print.
[avatar]Marian[/avatar]

A DEEPER LOOK: PURSUED: TEN KNIGHTS ON THE BARROOM FLOOR (from the notes of Mel R. Jones and additional research)

Explorer Michael J. Leahy coined this phrase to describe New Guinea in his 1937 book The Land That Time Forgot: Adventures and Discoveries in New Guinea. D’Albertis, another New Guinea explorer, wrote about travel there being as difficult as anywhere in the world. ”It’s easier to cross the Alps than to ascend an ordinary hill in Papua,” he said.

New Guinea is the world’s second largest island, located north of Australia, in the Pacific Ring of Fire where several tectonic plates collide. Active volcanoes with eruptions and earthquakes are common in New Guinea. A spine of mountains called the New Guinea Highlands runs the length of the island with a long Papuan Peninsula called the “Bird’s Tail”.

The Papuan mainland is the eastern half of the island of New Guinea where the capital, Port Moresby, is located. After 60 years of Australian administration, which began during World War I, Papua New Guinea gained its independence in 1975 as a Commonwealth realm with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state.

It is the world’s least explored and culturally diverse country. With a rural population and only 18 percent living in urban areas, New Guinea has groups of uncontacted peoples, 852 known languages, and many undiscovered species of plants and animals in the interior. Dense, tropical rain forests are found in the highlands, lowlands and coastal areas, with very large wetland areas surrounding the Sepik and Fly rivers. Some areas can only be reached on foot or by airplane. So why choose such a remote, primitive land as a novel setting?

In his acknowledgements, Jones relates that his interest in World War II and New Guinea was stirred in 1973. He served as an U.S. public affairs action officer on the news desk at the Pentagon, and was contacted by the Army Mortuary Service about news coverage of a B-24 Liberator bomber shot down in New Guinea in World War II, discovered 30 years later with remains recovered. He relates that this event captured his imagination and inspired the idea for his novel.

The New Guinea Campaign of World War II (1942-1945) was the scene of a major military conflict between Japan and the Allies. The war brought together Americans, Japanese, and Australians in the land of native Papuan tribes where these nations were engulfed in conflict. The natives had their own payback system and some practiced headhunting and cannibalism, not eradicated in many parts of the country until the late 20th century.

Jones’s novel opens as we look in on a search party on a mission to find a Qantas airliner that has disappeared in a remote area of the Southern Highlands Province of New Guinea in 1972. The group is headed by an Australian kiap, leery of cannibalistic natives that follow them. Instead of the airliner, they discover a crashed World War II U.S. B-24 bomber with the lettering Ten Knights on the Barroom Floor written on its fuselage.

What’s more, a recent crime scene is revealed within the fuselage of the wreckage, which will require the further investigation of a U.S. forensic pathologist, as well as a physical anthropologist and her U.S. Army remains recovery team to search for possible remains of the dead some 30 years later.

In Jones’s novel, the downed B-24 bomber is located near 8,000 foot Mount Bosavi feeding the Rentoul River in a region with one of the most dramatic landscapes on earth. The mountain is the collapsed cone of an extinct volcano which rises out of deeply creviced limestone hills. Its crater is 4 km wide and 1 km deep where a number of endemic species live. In 2009 an inter- national team of scientists and a television crew from the BBC participated in an expedition to remote Mount Bosavi in which more than 40 unknown species were discovered in its crater.

The U.S. investigative team in the novel is camped on the north side of the mountain between two antagonistic native tribes, the Tugaru mountain dwellers and the Riami river tribe. Obtaining their help, despite the language barrier, is essential in the team’s search for remains and/or possible survivors, and the determination of what happened there 30 years ago. An unfinished story, born out of war and silenced by time, nevertheless steadily engulfs the team in its suspenseful secrets as their investigations proceed.

So, what better place for a mystery novel setting than a lush jungle environment, not only with its beauty of primitive splendor, but also paradoxically with deadly dangers of its own?
[avatar]Marian[/avatar]

A DEEPER LOOK: PURSUED: TEN KNIGHTS ON THE BARROOM FLOOR (from the notes of Mel R. Jones)

In Jones’s novel, not only does the Christus Consolar statue in the Billings Hall at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, play an important part as one of the novel’s settings, but the sundial placed in the circular terrace in front of the main entrance to this Administrative Building does as well.

One look at this ornamental bronze sundial captivates one’s curiosity with its unusual design. It’s not a traditional sundial with a flat dial and an upright triangular blade to cast shadows.

Instead it features a partial cylinder held upright at the proper angle supported by four pillars. A bead on a wire strewn between the four pillars casts a shadow on the cylindrical plate, annotating the hour. More unusual, there are only five such identical sundials in existence, the fifth’s location yet to be found by sundial enthusiasts. The North American Sundial Society (NASS) believes it went missing years ago near Portland, Maine.

This new and improved version of the sundial was patented by scientist and inventor Albert Cushing Crehore of Yonkers, New York, in 1905 and was donated to Johns Hopkins Hospital by trustee George McGaw in the same year. Its weathered inscription reads, “One hour alone is in thy hands, the hour on which the shadow stands.”

As the novel opens in 1973, the protagonist, forensic pathologist, Dr. Emerson Stanek, couldn’t care less about this iconic sundial and its message. He and the Johns Hopkins dons and his mentor, Dr. Thomas Haviland, who are on his committee to decide whether his cancer research project qualifies for a grant, approach the sundial on their way to a conference area. They stop at the sundial where Dr. Haviland asks his colleagues what meaning each attributes to the saying on the sundial. Haviland reminds Stanek of the pathology department tradition that each time the group passes the sundial, they devise new meanings for its message.

One doctor’s contribution reminds them “one’s courage is greatest at the beginning of a journey.” Haviland’s contribution is the first principle of pathology used in his lectures. He asks Stanek if he remembers, and Stanek replies, “’Look intently enough at anything, and you’ll see something that might otherwise escape you.’” When Haviland asks Stanek to make his own offering, the pathologist’s mind, filled with repressed memories of past suffering in this area, tersely replies, “Never paid much attention to monuments strewn along the path of scientific progress on this campus.”

But Stanek can’t escape the committee’s attention, even after his outburst about estranged family relationships when reminded by Haviland the Stanek Foundation maintains the old sundial and other monuments. He finally relents and offers a clipped message designed to stop the committee from frittering away time on campus monuments when his cancer research project is awaiting its attention. He says, “All hours offer opportunities, but wasted ones kill all potential in the end.”

Despite his efforts to dismiss the sundial and its message, Stanek comes across it once again. As a favor to his mentor, he takes notes for him on a bundle of papers about a crime scene within a crashed WW II B-24 Liberator bomber from 1943 recently discovered in the Southern Highlands District of Papua New Guinea. The sundial’s image and message come into his view as he examines a piece of physical evidence offered to Haviland to interest him in taking on the B-24 case investigation.

Stanek picks up a Zippo lighter originally found clutched in a severed hand discovered inside the WW II B-24 bomber wreckage. The lighter has the saying, “One hour alone is in thy hands, the hour on which the shadow stands” along with an image of the sundial inscribed on it.

At first Stanek discounts the connection between the Johns Hopkins sundial and its message and the one on the Zippo lighter. Baltimore and New Guinea, so distant from one another in every way, seem to Stanek as too incredible a connection to be linked as a substantial clue in the crime scene investigation.

As Stanek inadvertently becomes involved in the inquiry in New Guinea, we wonder if his “hours” will be “wasted” there, or whether his “courage at the beginning of his journey” will last through the challenges inherent in the situation, or if he will “look at anything intently enough to see something that might otherwise escape him” in the mysterious and deadly intrigue the crime investigation reveals? Or will he discover a hidden connection that ties the sundial’s message in Baltimore to the same one on the Zippo lighter?

What’s more, will Stanek discover the human connectedness beyond science he has shut out of his life since the betrayal and injustice suffered in his youth? Will Stanek “look beyond science to probe the human soul when survival depends upon the pursued become the pursuers”?

Stanek’s choice is our choice as well. Does the sun shine on your “sundial,” or is it a cloudy day in your life? What meaning will you, and all of us, choose to see in the sundial’s message whatever the circumstances? “One hour alone is in thy hands, the hour on which the shadow stands.”

[avatar]Marian[/avatar]

A DEEPER LOOK: PURSUED: TEN KNIGHTS ON THE BARROOM FLOOR (from the notes of Mel R. Jones)

The fictional protagonist, forensic pathologist Dr. Emerson Stanek, experiences the worst emotional injustice of his life (which paradoxically also holds the possibility of the best) at the feet of the ten foot Carrara marble statue of the Christus Consolator in the rotunda of the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

In Jones’s novel we learn that through the years young Hopkins doctors have rubbed the toes of the monumental statue for good luck. And patients often pray before the statue where the words, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,” (Matthew 11:28) are visible on the pedestal. Two prayer books on stands at the side of the rotunda invite visitors to write down prayers and concerns if they wish.

But our protagonist’s first view of the statue after being away from Johns Hopkins for eight years brings back long repressed memories. As he walks by the statue with the Hopkins dons who will vote on a possible grant for his cancer research, Stanek will not rub the toes of the statue as his peers do. The symbol of compassion and forgiveness but rekindles the memory of the burning experience of the violent injustice suffered in his heart, mind and body at the site intended to inspire comfort, courage and hope to all who enter into the hospital.

The sensation of awe in silent admiration of the impressive Christus Consolator statue that an American textbook writer in 1896 described as “the most perfect statue of Christ in the world” with its welcoming gesture of open arms and downward gaze that can invoke in a viewer the awareness and emotion of the very presence of the Christ, but is lost on our main character as the novel opens. What’s more the statue’s pedestal that has been set low so that visitors may come close but reminds him of the ultimate betrayal, rejection and pain of his young life that he experienced there.

The breathtaking magnificence of the statue is splendidly placed in the center of the open rotunda under the interior dome of the Hopkins Hospital’s Administration Building. The statue’s series of approaches impact the viewer from any angle, and the ascending balconies surrounding the statues in the rotunda lift one’s view upward. The open arms of the statue await our hero’s choice of peace or conflict in his life journey.

Other eyes can enjoy the exact copy of Danish neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorwald’s Christus Consolator, the original first executed for Copenhagen’s Vor Frue Kirke, or Church of our Lady, in Denmark. So impressive is the statue that many other copies of it exist around the world.

We might wonder why a non-sectarian hospital acquired this religious symbol. In fact, the hospital’s first president of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and University, David Coit Gilman, at the opening ceremonies of the hospital in 1889, expressed the wish that a copy of the Christus Consolator, the Great Healer, be placed in the rotunda of the hospital, tying medical research into the furthering of Christian charity and relief of suffering. Seven years later a Scottish immigrant and one of the wealthiest businessmen in Baltimore, William Wallace Spence donated a copy of the massive statue to Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1896.

The statue was pulled from the wharf on a wooden sled drawn by four horses all the way up Broadway to the hospital’s north entrance, then slid down the corridor to its place in the rotunda. “Jesus came in the north door,” said William Thomas, the hospital’s first doorman, perhaps remembering the Bible quotation, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened to you. (Matthew 7:7)

Others wondered if the statue was sought to offset criticism from the more conservative element in late 19th century Baltimore that the hospital had no religious affiliation. The Christus Consolator statue’s impression has a universal and non-sectarian appeal that emphasizes Christ as the Divine Healer and minister to the sick at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

But would the “sickness” in the heart of character Emerson Stanek find healing through his experiences in the novel? Will he hold onto his painful suffering experienced at the feet of the Christ statue, or will he choose the peace offered by the welcoming, outstretched arms of the Christus Consolator? It is a choice each of us must make over and over again as we journey through life. Will we, or won’t we, listen to the words of Christ, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest?”

[avatar]Marian[/avatar]

A DEEPER LOOK: PURSUED: TEN KNIGHTS ON THE BARROOM FLOOR (from the notes of Mel R. Jones)

Having served two tours of duty in Vietnam, Mel R. Jones wrote in the acknowledgements to his novel, “Those of us who have been involved in the military in one way or another have been sent to protect our country by engaging in war to attain peace—a paradox of human experience that repeats itself generation after generation, century after century.”

Jones’s vision for his novel, the first of his planned trilogy with the underlying theme of why we go to war, was inspired by a non-fiction book of political philosophy by John G. Stoessinger titled Why Nations Go to War in which he posed this question and possible considerations. He asked, is it the way we organize ourselves as nations? Or is it how we form alliances with other nations? Or is it inherent in the nature of man?

Pursued: Ten Knights on the Barroom Floor explores Stroessinger’s first question. Is it the way we organize ourselves as nations, or cultures, interacting with each other that holds the seeds of both peace and war?

In Jones’s novel, “two worlds, civilized and primitive, past and present, and four cultures—American, Japanese, Australian and native Papuan–deal with the horrors of war and conflict, yet also with the paradox of times of peace that relate to the connectedness of the human community.”

The novel abounds in the complexity of these cultural interactions in a land of primitive beauty, but also lethal danger, which is under Australian political authority. At the site of a recently discovered 1943 crashed WW II bomber in a remote mountain jungle in Papua New Guinea, a U.S. Army remains recovery team, headed by a physical anthropologist is joined by a forensic pathologist there to investigate a crime scene within the fuselage of the wreckage in 1973. The Americans are camped between two antagonistic, primitive native tribes, one a river tribe and the other mountain dwellers, who are fueled by their own payback customs.

The investigative team has to walk in the shoes of American airmen, possibly living or dead, those of Japanese survivors from their bombing raid, as well as Papuan tribal leaders to find the answers as to what happened there, the location of any remains and, mysteriously, who wants the pathologist killed and why.

We wonder if any of the novel characters can rise above their upbringing–the very backbone of their identities forged in national or cultural homes–which colors their perceptions of so many differences that separate them, one from another?

So, why do we go to war? Is it the way we organize ourselves as nations or cultures that delivers us into war, forgetting the love that binds us together as one, as we “brawl” on the “barroom floor” of conflict with one another? Is it a cause or but a given symptom of a world of opposites where free will holds within it the potential of both choices, like two sides of one coin, depending on which side is chosen at any one time? Will it be war or peace? And the universal paradox continues as the choice is made over and over again, generation after generation, century after century in our earthly experience.

[avatar]Marian[/avatar]

A DEEPER LOOK: PURSUED: TEN KNIGHTS ON THE BARROOM FLOOR (from the notes of Mel R. Jones)

You might ask, “What’s with this unusual, paradoxical title, Pursued: Ten Knights on the Barroom Floor? Thoughts might occur to you, such as, “We expect ‘knights’ to be noble defenders in service to the greater good. What are they doing on the ‘barroom floor?’ And ten of them at that! They certainly must be lost to their mission. Does anyone really care if they have fallen? Why try to find, or ‘pursue,’ them?”

As a nation, we do care about our fallen soldiers and airmen who died to protect their country. We do wish to recover their remains whenever possible to honor their service and help bring closure to their grieving families no matter how many years have passed since their demise.

In our story, thirty years have gone by before a crashed WW II B-24 Liberator bomber is accidentally discovered in 1973 by an Australian kiap and his constables in the Southern Highlands District of Papua New Guinea in the Mount Bosavi region. What’s more, there’s evidence that a more recent crime scene has occurred within the wreckage. When notified, the Americans send a physical anthropologist and her U.S. Army remains recovery team to search for the “ten knights,” or ten crew members, dead or possibly still alive, of the ill-fated bomber, named Ten Knights on the Barroom Floor. And a forensic pathologist joins the team to investigate mysterious criminal activity that later had occurred at the downed aircraft site.

But what about the unusual name painted on the fuselage of the crippled aircraft? The Australian discovery group remarked, “It’s a strange name for an aircraft, even for the Yanks. Oh, well. Must’ve meant something special for the crew who flew her.”

So, what did the name mean to the B-24 aircrew? Later, in the story, a pilot’s log is discovered which reveals the answer. We learn that the ten man crew in question didn’t have their own aircraft at first, only lots of dead time in New Guinea that drove them nuts. In the evenings they “drank and fought the air crews who were doing something meaningful—anything to combat boredom.”

But, in December 1943, General Douglas McArthur himself directed the “Knights of the Barroom Brawls” as he called them, be given a B-24 and a chance to show “they could fight in the air as well.” Thereafter, the first aircraft to come through the pipeline to Port Moresby went to the brawling crew who painted, Ten Knights on the Barroom Floor, on their lady’s fuselage in honor of “escapades so notorious even the brass noticed their plight.” One of the crew members “midnight-requisitioned” the suit of armor handing above the bar in the officer’s club as a totem to accompany the “ten knights” on their first B-24 bombing mission to Wewak the following day…

Thirty years later, one of the characters involved in the “B-24 case” commented: ”Aren’t we all ‘Knights on the Barroom Floor” in this fallen world, hopefully to be lifted up when we close the door on this life?”

What’s in a name or title, then, no matter how strange? Perhaps it holds within it the hope of the human soul that there has to be a better way, a peace without conflict, or paradox, where we are all one, living the noble nature of the “knight,” no longer on the “barroom floor.”

[avatar]Marian[/avatar]

New Book Release!

We’re pleased to announce the release of author Mel R. Jones’s epic WW II Literary Mystery Novel, Pursued: Ten Knights on the Barroom Floor. The novel is now available on Amazon in both Paperback and Kindle editions!

Wary of human emotion, but sure of scientific verity, Dr. Emerson Stanek’s orderly life erupts into a perilous adventure in 1973 when he joins Dr. DeAnn Toland and her U.S. Army remains recovery team at a WW II B-24 bomber crash site in New Guinea. A crime scene within the bomber’s wreckage named “Ten Knights on the Barroom Floor,” spearheads his investigation into a 30-year-old mystery entangling Stanek and Toland in a deadly and intricate web threaded with global intrigue. Stanek must look beyond science to probe the human soul when survival depends upon the pursued becoming the pursuers.

[avatar]Marian[/avatar]