THE SABLE DOUGHBOYS

An engrossing follow-up to Buffalo Soldiers (1996), the first in a series documenting the black experience in America's postCivil War military. Despite their age, Adrian and David Sharps (who served as youngsters with their sergeant major father in the Army's fin-de- siäcle campaigns throughout Cuba) are allowed to reenlist as officer candidates when the US enters WW I. Along with other young black men, the sons of Augustus (a proud veteran of the 10th Cavalry) and Selona (his strong-willed wife) encounter a discouraging amount of prejudice. Selona and Augustus temporarily leave the family home in Arizona to help their lads over the jumps at a segregated training camp in Des Moines. Posted as lieutenants to the 93rd Division's 372nd Infantry Regiment, the boys ship out for France in the spring of 1918. Upon landing in St. Nazaire, however, the combat-ready troops are lumbered with stevedoring duties on the local docks. Risking courts-martial, Adrian and David besiege the chain of command to secure a battlefield assignment for their men. Fighting Germans alongside a Foreign Legion unit, the Sharps brothers survive the quotidian shocks of trench warfare on the Western Front until the Meuse-Argonne offensive. During this bloody but decisive engagement, David loses his life and Adrian is gravely wounded (albeit not before winning a Croix de Guerre and DSC). Invalided back to the States minus his left arm, Adrian still has the battered sword Augustus presented to him. At the close, in 1943, Adrian passes the weapon on to his own son, who's home on leave after qualifying as an Army Air Corps pilot at Tuskegee Institute. A fine addition to the author's generation-spanning saga, which, without undue fanfare, offers object lessons in such virtues as fidelity, honor, and tradition as well as a full measure of pulse-pounding action. (Radio satellite tour)