Wrapping up one plot line

At close to 24,000 words, I am getting ready for a climax and resolution to one plot line, and will be turning my attention to the second one. I have felt stuck at about 25% complete for some time now, but the more I think about it, I cam closer to a third done with the first draft.

I have mentioned before that my grandfather provided inspiration for part of the book. There is only one of his letters that I am quoting nearly verbatim. It was written in Germany in 1944, about two weeks after four of his friends were killed by a shell blast:

. . .after reading your letters, I want to tell you that you are too, too tense about my safety here. Don’t worry – I’m pretty careful and anyway we are usually several miles behind the front lines where rifle, machine gun, & hand-to-hand combat is carried out. We are only subjected to shell, mortar fire, and now and then a plane flits over us and drops a bomb or two and strafes vehicles on the road. And if a guy’s pretty careful and not trying to take chances he has a darn good chance of never getting hurt at all.

Take a few days ago. We had our trucks on the road ready to convoy. A shell whistled over & I saw the burst of white phosphorus several hundred yards behind us but in line with us. So I says to the boys as long as we aren’t actually moving let’s just high-tail it down the cellar (we were standing by a house). So come of us do. Not 20 seconds later there was a scramble of fellows all trying to come in with ust at once. Shells were coming in & of course that is what I surmised and was safe. I cannot comment on casualties ever, Mother. It is better they are forgotten anyhow.