FINAL BLACKOUT

                           By L. RON HUBBARD


                                HADLEY
                            PUBLISHING CO.
                           PROVIDENCE, R.I.

               COPYRIGHT BY STREET & SMITH PUBLICATIONS
                                 1940
                   COPYRIGHT 1948 BY L. RON HUBBARD

                             HALLADAY INC.
                       EAST PROVIDENCE 14, R.I.


                              DEDICATION


                  TO THE MEN AND OFFICERS WITH WHOM I
                 SERVED IN WORLD WAR II, FIRST PHASE,
                              1941-1945.




                                PREFACE


When FINAL BLACKOUT was written there was still a Maginot Line, Dunkirk
was just another French coastal town and the Battle of Britain, the
Bulge, Saipan, Iwo, V2s and Nagasaki were things unknown and far ahead
in history. While it concerns these things, its action will not take
place for many years yet to come and it is, therefore, still a story of
the future though some of the "future" it embraced (about one fifth)
has already transpired.

When published in magazine form before the war it created a little
skirmish of its own and, I am told, as time has gone by and some
of it has unreeled, interest in it has if anything increased. So
far its career has been most adventurous as a story. The "battle of
FINAL BLACKOUT" has included loud wails from the Communists--who said
it was pro-fascist (while at least one fascist has held it to be
pro-Communist). Its premises have been called wild and unfounded on the
one hand while poems (some of them very good) have been written about
or dedicated to the Lieutenant. Meetings have been held to nominate it
to greatness while others have been called to hang the author in effigy
(and it is a matter of record that the last at least was successfully
accomplished).

The British would not hear of its being published there at the time it
appeared in America, though Boston, I am told, remained neutral--for
there is nothing but innocent slaughter in it and no sign of rape.

There are those who insist that it is all very bad and those who claim
for it the status of immortality. And while it probably is not the
worst tale ever written, I cannot bring myself to believe that FINAL
BLACKOUT, as so many polls and such insist, is one of the ten greatest
stories ever published.

Back in those mild days when Pearl Harbor was a place you toured while
vacationing at Waikiki and when every drawing room had its business man
who wondered disinterestedly whether or not it _was_ not possible to
do business with Hitler, the anti-FINAL BLACKOUTISTS (many of whom, I
fear, were Communists) were particularly irked by some of the premises
of the tale.

Russia was, obviously, a peace-loving nation with no more thought than
America of entering the war. England was a fine going concern without a
thought, beyond a contemptuous aside, for the Socialist who, of course,
could never come to power. One must understand this to see why FINAL
BLACKOUT slashed about and wounded people.

True enough, some of its premises were far off the mark. It supposed,
for instance, that the politicians of the great countries, particularly
the United States, would push rather than hinder the entrance of the
whole world into the war. In fact, it supposed, for its author was very
young, that politicians were entirely incompetent and would not prevent
for one instant the bloodiest conflict the country had ever known.

Further, for the author was no critic, it supposed that the general
staffs of most great nations were composed of stupid bunglers who would
be looking up their friends on the selection board when they should
be looking to their posts and that the general world wide strategy
of war would go off in a manner utterly unadroit to the sacrifice of
efficiency. It surmised that if general staffs went right on bungling
along, military organization would cease to exist, and it further--and
more to the point--advanced the thought that the junior combat officer,
the noncom and, primarily the enlisted men would have to prosecute
the war. These, it believed, would finally be boiled down, by staff
"stupidity," to a handful of unkillables who would thereafter shift for
themselves.

FINAL BLACKOUT declared rather summarily--and very harshly, for the
author was inexperienced in international affairs--that the anarchy
of nations was an unhealthy arrangement maintained by the greed of a
few for the privileges of a few and that the "common people" (which is
to say those uncommon people who wish only to be let go about their
affairs of getting enough to eat and begetting their next generation)
would be knocked flat, silly and completely out of existence by these
brand new "defensive" weapons which would, of course, be turned only
against soldiers. Bombs, atomics, germs and, in short, science, it
maintained, were being used unhealthily and that, soon enough, a person
here and there who was no party to the front line sortie was liable
to get injured or dusty; it also spoke of populations being affected
boomerang fashion by weapons devised for own governments to use.

Certainly all this was heresy enough in that quiet world of 1939, and
since that time, it is only fair to state, the author has served here
and there and has gained enough experience to see the error of his
judgment.

There have been two or three stories modeled on FINAL BLACKOUT. I
am flattered. It is just a story. And as the past few years have
fortunately proven, it cannot possibly happen.

                                                         L. RON HUBBARD
                                                        Hollywood, 1948




                            THE LIEUTENANT.


He was born in an air-raid shelter--and his first wail was drowned by
the shriek of bombs, the thunder of falling walls and the coughing
chatter of machine guns raking the sky.

He was taught in a countryside where A was for Anti-aircraft and V
was for victory. He knew that Vickers Wellington bombers had flown
non-stop clear to China. But nobody thought to tell him about a man who
had sailed a carack as far in the opposite direction--a chap called
Columbus.

War-shattered officers had taught him the arts of battle on the relief
maps of Rugby. Limping sergeants had made him expert with rifle and
pistol, light and heavy artillery. And although he could not conjugate
a single Latin verb, he was graduated as wholly educated at fourteen
and commissioned the same year.

His father was killed on the Mole at Kiel. His uncle rode a flamer in
at Hamburg. His mother, long ago, had died of grief and starvation in
the wreckage which had been London.

When he was eighteen he had been sent to the front as a subaltern. At
twenty-three he was commanding a brigade.

In short, his career was not unlike that of any other high-born English
lad born after the beginning of that conflict which is sometimes known
as the War of Books--or the War of Creeds, or the War Which Ended War
or World wars two, three, four and five. Like any other war, with the
exception that he lived through it.

There is little accounting for the reason he lived so long and, having
lived, moved up to take the spotlight on the Continental stage for a
few seconds out of time. But there is never any accounting for such
things.

When officers and men, sick with the hell of it, walked out to find a
bullet that would end an unlivable life, he shrugged and carried on.
When his messmates went screaming mad from illness and revulsion, he
gave them that for which they begged, sheathed his pistol and took over
the fragments of their commands. When outfits mutinied and shot their
officers in the back, he squared his own and, faced front, carried on.

He had seen ninety-three thousand replacements come into his division
before he had been a year on the Continent. And he had seen almost as
many files voided over again.

He was a soldier and his trade was death, and he had seen too much to
be greatly impressed with anything. Outwardly he was much like half a
million others of his rank; inwardly there was a difference. He had
found out, while commanding ack-acks in England, that nerves are more
deadly than bullets, and so he had early denied the existence of his
own, substituting a careless cheerfulness which went strangely with the
somber gloom which overhung the graveyard of Europe. If he had nerves,
he kept them to himself. And what battles he fought within himself to
keep them down must forever go unsung.

Before he had been a year on the Continent, the dread soldier's
sickness--that very learned and scientific result of bacteriological
warfare, the climax of years of mutating germs unto final, incurable
diseases--had caused a quarantine to be placed on all English troops
serving across the Channel, just as America, nine years before, had
completely stopped all communication across the Atlantic, shortly after
her abortive atom war had boomeranged. Hence, he had not been able to
return to England.

If he longed for his own land, shell-blasted though it might be, he
never showed it. Impassively he had listened each time to the tidings
of seven separate revolutions which had begun with the assassination
of a king, a crime which had been succeeded by every known kind of
political buffoonery culminating in Communism, (for at least that is
what they called this ideology, though Marx would have disowned it.
And the late, unlamented Stalin would have gibbered incoherently at the
heresy of its tenets). And he saw only mirth in the fact that, whereas
the crimson banner flew now over London, the imperial standard of the
czar now whipped in the Russian breeze.

Seven separate governments, each attacked and made to carry on the
war. Nine governments in Germany in only eighteen years. He had let
the ribbons and insignia issued him drop into the mud, wishing with
all his kind that all governments would collapse together and put an
end to this. But that had never happened. The fall of one side netted
attack from the organized other. And turn about. Just as the problem
of manufacture had unequalized the periods of bombing, so had this
served to prolong this war that the brief orgy of atomics, murderously
wild, if utterly indecisive, had spread such hatreds that the lingering
sparks of decency and forbearance seemed to have vanished from the
world. War, as in days of old, had become a thing of hate and loot, for
how else was a machine tooled country to get machines and tools which
it could no longer generate within itself.

He knew nothing about these international politics--or at least
pretended that he did not. He was, however, in close touch with the
effects, for such a collapse was always followed by the general advance
of the other side. The fall of his own immediate clique in command
meant that he, as a soldier, would be attacked; the banishing of the
enemies' chief caused him to attack in turn. But war, to him, was the
only actuality, for rarely had he known of that thing of which men
spoke dreamily and to which they gave the name "peace".

       *       *       *       *       *

He had seen, in his lifetime, the peak and oblivion of flight, the
perfection and extinction of artillery, the birth and death of nuclear
physics, the end product of bacteriology, but only the oblivion,
extinction, and death of culture.

It had been three years since he had heard an airplane throbbing
overhead. As a child, to him they had been as common as birds, if
a shade more deadly. They had flown fast and far and then when the
crash of atom bombs in guided missiles had finally blotted out three
quarters of the manufacturing centers of the world they had flown no
more. For the airplane is a fragile thing which cannot exist without
replacement parts, without complex fuels, without a thousand aids. Even
the assembly of a thousand partly damaged ships into perhaps fifty that
would fly did not give a nation more than a few months' superiority in
the air. It was quiet, very quiet. The planes had gone.

Once great guns had rumbled along definite lines. But big guns
had needed artfully manufactured shells, and when the centers of
manufacture had become too disorganized to produce such a complex thing
as a shell, firing had gradually sputtered out, jerkily reviving, but
fainter each time until it ceased. For the guns themselves had worn
out. And when infantry tactics came to take the place of the warfare of
fortresses and tanks, those few guns which remained had, one by one,
been abandoned, perforce, and left in ruins to a rapidly advancing
enemy. This was particularly true of the smaller field guns which had
hung on feebly to the last.

It had been four years since he had received his last orders by radio,
for there were no longer parts for replacement. And though it was
rumored that G.H.Q. of the B.E.F. had radio communication with England
no one could really tell. It had been seven years since a new uniform
had been issued, three years or more since a rank had been made for an
officer.

His world was a shambles of broken townships and defiled fields, an
immense cemetery where thirty million soldiers and three hundred
million civilians had been wrenched loose from life. And though the
death which had shrieked out of the skies would howl no more, there was
no need. Its work was done.

Food supplies had diminished to a vanishing point when a power,
rumored to have been Russia, had spread plant insects over Europe.
Starvation had done its best to surpass the death lists of battle. And,
as an ally, another thing had come.

The disease known as soldier's sickness had wiped a clammy hand across
the slate of Europe, taking ten times as many as the fighting of the
war itself. Death crept silently over the wastes of grass-grown shell
holes and gutted cities, slipping bony fingers into the cogs of what
organization had survived. From the Mediterranean to the Baltic,
no wheel turned for the illness was not one disease germ grossly
mutated into a killer which defied penicillin, sulfa, pantomecin,
and stereo-rays, it was at least nine illnesses, each one superior
to yellow fever or the bubonic plague. The nine had combined amongst
themselves to create an infinite variety of manifestations. In far
countries, South America, South Africa, Scandinavia, where smoke might
have belched from busy chimneys, nearly annihilated nations which had
never been combatants had closed their ports and turned to wooden
sticks for plows. Their libraries might still bulge with know-how
but who could go there to read them? Nations entirely innocent of
any single belligerent move in this war, or these many wars, had
become, capitals and hamlets alike, weed grown and tumbled ruins to be
quarantined a half century or more from even their own people.

But the lieutenant was not unhappy about it. He had no comparisons.
When lack of credit and metal and workmen had decreed the abandonment
of the last factory, he had received the tidings in the light that
artillery had never accomplished anything in tactics, anyway, Napoleon
to the contrary. When the last rattling wreck of a plane had become
a rusting pile of charred metal, he had smiled his relief. What had
planes done but attack objectives they could not hold?

       *       *       *       *       *

From the records which remain of him, it is difficult to get an
accurate description of the man himself, as difficult as it is easy
to obtain minute accounts of his victories and defeats. His enemies
represent him as having an upsetting and even ghoulish way of smiling,
an expression of cheerfulness which never left him even when he meted
death personally. But enemies have a way of distorting those they fear,
and the oft-repeated statement that he took no pleasure in anything but
death is probably false.

Such a view seems to be belied by the fact that he took no pleasure
in a victory unless it was bloodless so far as his own troops were
concerned. This may be accounted as a natural revulsion toward the
school of warfare which measured the greatness of a victory in the
terms of its largeness of casualty lists. Incredible as it may seem,
even at the time of his birth the mass of humanity paid no attention
to strategic conquests if they were not attended by many thousands of
deaths. But men, alas, had long since ceased to be cheap, and the field
officer or staff officer that still held them so generally died of a
quiet night with a bayonet in his ribs. And so the question may be
argued on both sides. He might or might not be credited with mercy on
the score that he conserved his men.

Physically, he seems to have been a little over medium height,
blue-gray of eye and blond. Too, he was probably very handsome, though
we only touch upon his conquests in another field. The one picture of
him is a rather bad thing, done by a soldier of his command after his
death with possibly more enthusiasm than accuracy.

He may have had nerves so high-strung that he was half mad in times
of stress--and not unlikely, for he was intelligent. He might have
educated himself completely out of nerves. As for England herself, he
might have loved her passionately and have done those things he did
all for her. And, again, it might have been a cold-blooded problem in
strategy which it amused him to solve.

These things, just as his name, are not known. He was the lieutenant.
But whether he was madman and sadist or gentleman and patriot--this
must be solved by another.




                               CHAPTER I


The brigade huddled about two fires in the half dawn, slowly finishing
off a moldy breakfast, washing down crumbs of rotted bread with drafts
of watery, synthetic tea. About them stood the stark skeletons of a
forest, through the broken branches of which crept wraiths of mist,
quiet as the ghosts of thirty million fighting men.

Half hidden by the persistent underbrush were several dark holes;
down awry steps lay the abandoned depths of a once-great fortress,
garrisoned now by skeletons which mildewed at their rusty guns.

Though not yet wholly awake, the attitudes of the men were alert
through long practice. Each man with half himself was intent upon
each slightest sound, not trusting the sentries who lay in fox holes
round about. Much of this tautness was habit. But more of it, today,
had direction. A night patrol had brought word that several hundred
Russians occupied the ridges surrounding this place. And the brigade,
which had once been six thousand strong, now numbered but a hundred and
sixty-eight.

They were a motley command: Englishmen, Poles, Spaniards, Frenchmen,
Finns and Italians, uniformed in the rags of twenty nations, friend and
foe alike. They were armed with a catalogue of weapons, the cartridges
of one seldom serving the rifle of another. They were clothed and
armed, then, by the whim and experience of each.

In common they had endless years of war behind them. In common they had
the habit of war. Long since the peasants of the armies had slid over
the hill, back to devastated farms and fields, leaving only those who
had but one talent.

The English could not, because of the quarantine against soldier's
sickness, go home. Once they had had sweethearts, wives and families.
But no one had heard for so long--

They had survived whole divisions of replacements. They had been
commanded by more officers than they could count. They had been
governed by more creeds than they could ever understand.

Here was their world, a shattered wood, an empty fortress, a breakfast
of crumbs and hot water, each man hard by his rifle, each existing for
the instant and expecting the next to bring danger and death.

These were the unkillables, immune to bullets, bombs and bugs, schooled
in war to perfection, kept alive by a seventh and an eighth sense of
danger which could interpret the slightest change in their surroundings
and preserve themselves from it.

Having lost all causes and connections, having forgotten their
religions, they still had one god, their lieutenant. He was, after all,
a highly satisfactory god. He fed them, clothed them and conserved
their lives--which was more than any other god could have done.

Now and then eyes wandered to the lieutenant and were quieted by the
sight of him. For, despite all danger, the lieutenant was sitting upon
the half-submerged wheel of a caisson, shaving himself with the help of
a mirror stuck in the crotch of a forked stick.

The cook came up with a kettle of hot water which he emptied into the
old helmet which served the lieutenant as a washbasin. The cook was a
lean fellow of rather murderous aspect, wholly unwashed and hairy and
carrying a naked bayonet thrust through his belt.

"Can I get the leftenant anythin' else, sir?"

"Why, yes. A fresh shirt, an overcoat, a new pistol and some caviar."

"I would if them Russians had any, sir."

"I have no doubt of it, Bulger," smiled the lieutenant. "But, really,
haven't you something a bit special for breakfast? This is an
anniversary, you know. My fifth year at the front was done yesterday."

"Congratulations, leftenant, sir. If you don't mind my mentioning it,
are you goin' to start the sixth year with a fight?"

"Ho!" said a rough voice nearby. "You'll be advising us on tactics
next. Stick to your foraging, Bulger." And Pollard, the sergeant major,
gave the cook a shove back toward the fire. "Sir, I just toured the
outposts and they been hearin' troops movin' on the high ground. Weasel
is out there and he claims he heard gun wheels groanin' about four."

"Gun wheels!" said the lieutenant.

"That's what he said."

The lieutenant grinned and rinsed off his face. "Some day a high wind
is going to catch hold of his ears and carry him off."

"About them Russians, sir," said Pollard, soberly, "are we just going
to stay here until they close in on us? They know we're down here. I
feel it. And them fires--"

Pollard was stopped by the lieutenant's grin. He was a conscientious
sergeant, often pretending to a sense of humor which he did not
possess. No matter how many men he had killed or how terrible he was in
action, his rugged face white with battle lust, he shivered away from
ridicule at the hands of the lieutenant. In his own way he respected
the boy, never giving a thought that his officer was some twenty-three
years his junior.

The lieutenant slid into his shirt and was about to speak when the
smallest whisper of a challenge sounded some two hundred yards away.
Instantly the clearing was deserted, all men instinctively taking cover
from which they could shoot with the smallest loss of life and the
greatest damage to the foe. There had been a note of anxiety in that
challenge.

The lieutenant, pistol in hand, stood with widespread boots, playing
intelligent eyes through the misty woods. A bird call sounded and
the camp began to relax, men coming back to their fires and again
addressing their synthetic tea.

       *       *       *       *       *

After a little, as the call had indicated, an English officer
strode through the underbrush, looked about and then approached the
lieutenant. Although a captain, he was dressed in no manner to indicate
his outfit. Like the lieutenant, he had amalgamated the uniforms of
some four services into an outfit which was at least capable of keeping
out the wet.

"Fourth Brigade?" he questioned.

"Right," said the lieutenant. "Hello, Malcolm."

The captain looked more closely and then smiled and shook the extended
hand. "Well, well! I never expected to find you, much less get to
you. By the guns, fellow, did you know these ridges are alive with
Russians?"

"I suspected so," said the lieutenant. "We've been waiting three days
for them."

Malcolm started. "But ... but here you are, in a death trap!" He
covered his astonishment. "Well! I can't presume to advise a brigade
commander in the field."

"You've come from G.H.Q.?"

"From General Victor, yes. I had the devil's own time getting to you
and then finding you. I say, old boy, those Russians--"

"How is General Victor?"

"Between us, he's in a funk. Ever since the British Communist Party
took over London and executed Carlson, Victor hasn't slept very well."

"Bulger," said the lieutenant, "bring the captain some breakfast."

Bulger lumbered up with a whole piece of bread and a dixie of tea which
the staff officer seized upon avidly.

"Not much," said the lieutenant, "but it's the last of the supplies we
found cached here in this fortress. Eat slowly, for the next, if any,
will have to be Russian. Now. Any orders?"

"You're recalled to G.H.Q. for reorganization."

The lieutenant gave a slight quiver of surprise. "Does this have
anything to do--with my failure to comply with the B.C.P. Military
Committee's orders to appoint soldiers' councils?"

Malcolm shrugged and spoke through a full mouth and without truth. "Oh,
no. Who'd bother about that? I think they wish to give you a wider
command. They think well of you, you know."

"Then--" said the lieutenant, knowing full well that a recalled officer
was generally a deposed officer.

"It's the general's idea. But, see here, those Russians--"

"I'll engage them shortly," said the lieutenant. "They're fresh and
they ought to have boots and bread and maybe something to drink. My
favorite listening post, a chap named Weasel, said he heard wheels last
night."

"Right. I was going to tell you. I saw a trench mortar and an anti-tank
rocket--"

"No!"

"Truth," said Malcolm.

"Artillery!"

"No less."

"Well, I'll--Why, there hasn't been a field piece on this front since
the storming of Paris two years ago. Though mortars and bazookas could
hardly be called field pieces. Have they got shells, do you suppose?"

"They had caissons."

"And--say! Horses!"

"I saw two!"

The lieutenant beamed happily. "Ah, you've come just in time. Roast
horse. Think of it! Brown, sizzling, dripping, juicy horse!"

"Horse?" said Bulger, instantly alert although he had been a hundred
feet and more away.

The brigade itself looked hopeful; they moved about through the naked
starkness of the trees and tried to catch sight of the Russians on the
heights.

       *       *       *       *       *

The event was, to say the least, unusual. And the thought of food
momentarily clogged Malcolm's wits. In light of what he was trying to
do, he would never have made such a statement. "It's been a long time
since I've had a decent meal of anything. Much less horse."

The lieutenant caught at the remark. There was no sympathy between
field officers and staff officers, for, while the former fought and
starved, the latter skulked in the protection of impregnable G.H.Q.
and received occasional rations from England, existing between times
on condensed food stored in times past for many more men than were now
left alive. That a staff officer had risked this trek in the first
place struck the lieutenant as being very odd.

"What's up?"

Malcolm realized then, possibly from the sharpness of the tone, that he
had done wrong.

"What's up?" repeated the lieutenant insistently.

Malcolm put a good face on it. "I shouldn't tell you, but we're out of
touch with England. There's been no food for three months."

"That isn't all you can tell me."

Malcolm squirmed. "Well, if you'll have it. G.H.Q. is recalling all
field troops. General Victor is thinking of withdrawing from our
present base into the south where there may be some fertile area. It
will be better for all of us." Sycophant that he was, he sought to
allay further questioning. "I was sent expressly to get you. Your
ability is well known and appreciated, and Victor feels that, with you
guiding operations, we cannot fail."

The lieutenant brushed it aside. "You're telling me that England--no,
not England but those damned Communists there--have forbidden us ever
to return."

"Well--the quarantine did that."

"But it left room for hope," said the lieutenant.

Malcolm was silent.

"They're afraid," said the lieutenant. "Afraid we'll come back and
turn their government appetite over dixie." He laughed sharply. "Poor
little shivering fools! Why, there aren't ten thousand British troops
left in the world outside of England. Not one man where there was once
a thousand. We've battered French and German and Russian and Italian
and German again until we're as few as they. First we came over to get
machine tools and food. Then, with one excuse or another they began to
tell us false tales of impending invasion but it has been two years
since we could locate anything you could call a political entity on
this continent. We can't go home because we'll take the sickness. And
what are we here? We're mixed up with fifty nationalities, commanded
by less than a hundred officers, scattered from Egypt to Archangel.
Ten thousand men and ten million, twenty million graves. Outcasts, men
without a country. A whole generation wiped out by shot and starvation
and sickness and those that are left scarcely able to keep belly, ribs
and jacket together. And they're afraid of us in England!"

It had its effect upon Malcolm. He had been out only two years. Sent
originally full of hope and swagger with a message for General Victor
from the supreme council and never afterwards allowed to return home.
For a moment he forgot his fear of a field officer, remembering instead
a certain girl, weeping on a dock. "I'll get back some way. It's not
final. I'll see her again!"

"Not under Victor, you won't."

"Wait," cautioned Malcolm, afraid again. "He's your superior officer."

"Perhaps," and in that word Malcolm read direful things.

"But you'll obey him?" said Malcolm.

"And go back to G.H.Q. Certainly."

Malcolm sighed a little with relief. How dull these field officers
were at times! Didn't they ever hear anything? But then, thirty or
more outfits had innocently obeyed that order, little knowing that
they would be stripped of their commands immediately upon arrival
and asked to be off and out of sight of the offended staff. But, no,
the lieutenant would not understand until the whole thing was over.
There was nothing unreasonable in this to Malcolm. Importance now was
measured only by the number of troops an officer commanded. It was not
likely that the staff would leave mutinous field officers at the head
of soldiers and thus menace the very foundation of the general staff.

"They've had their way in England," said the lieutenant. "Yes. They've
had their way."

Malcolm was troubled again. He quickly redirected the lieutenant's line
of thought. "It will be all right when we have a new post. We'll carve
out a large section of fertile country and there'll be food enough for
all."

"Yes?" said the lieutenant.

Malcolm could read nothing from that at all. He shivered involuntarily,
for he had heard strange tales from out of the darkness of the
continent.

"What's this?" said the lieutenant. "Fever? Carstone! Draw a drink off
that Belgian alcohol machine gun and give it to Captain Malcolm."

"Thanks," said Malcolm, affected.

       *       *       *       *       *

The lieutenant got up and stretched. To look at him one would not
suspect that he had been starved his entire life, for his body was firm
and healthy. He had been born into hardship and he had thrived upon
it. He smoothed out his blond hair with his fingers and set an Italian
duriron helmet upon his head. He shrugged into his tunic and buckled
his belt. Out of habit he checked over his automatic, examining each
bullet in the three clips.

Mawkey, a little fellow with a twisted spine and a set of diabolical
eyes, who usually waited upon the lieutenant, came forward with a rag
and wiped the lieutenant's boots. Then, from a broken limb he took
down the bullet-proof cape which had been captured from a Swiss nearly
four years ago. It was inch-thick silk, weighing almost thirty pounds
in itself and weighted further by the slugs which had lodged in it and
which could not be cut out without ruining it. Mawkey fastened it about
the lieutenant's shoulders and then began to pack the shaving effects
into a gas-mask container.

"Where have you been?" said the lieutenant.

"I took a personal scout," said Mawkey, pointing to his superfine eyes,
the best in the brigade. He grinned evilly. "Russians begin to move
about daylight; they creep down ravines toward here. I see officers on
hummock up there." He pointed to an exposed hill. "See them?"

"No."

"Just a cap here and there."

"The officers, you say?"

"See! The sun hit a field glass!"

"I didn't but we'll take your word."

"Good Heaven, man," said Malcolm, "you're not just going to sit here
and wait for them!"

"Why not? Would you have us charge across the open at men with
artillery?"

"No, but--"

"Take it easy," said the lieutenant "Sergeant, bring all but two posts
in. Be ready to march in ten minutes."

"Yessir."

"March?" said Malcolm. "But where?"

A sentry came wriggling out of the brush and ran to the lieutenant. "I
zee seex, seven Russian patrol come." And he pointed west.

And an instant later two more sentries came in breathlessly, pointing
to the south and the east. The Russian post of command had already been
indicated in the north.

"You're caught!" said Malcolm. "They've spotted you by your fires!"

"Bulger, throw on a few green sticks to make more smoke," replied the
lieutenant. "Have you got all the wrong-caliber ammunition, Pollard?"

"And some from the fortress down there, sir."

"Good. Put a squad to work gathering all the dry wood in sight. Stand
by to throw it on the fires. Carstone, better check your pneumatics."

"Yessir."

"Yessir."

"Tou-tou, stand by to head the rear guard and pick your men."

"Yess, yess, mon lieutenant."

"Good Heaven, old boy!" said Malcolm. "Of what use is a rear guard when
there is nowhere to retreat? Oh, yes, I know. I'm steady. But every
time I see one of you field officers preparing a defense or attack, I
get a headache. You aren't according to the book, you know, not at all.
I say, how fine it would be to have some artillery ourselves."

"Worthless stuff."

"Eh?"

"If I had an anti-tank rifle and a trench mortar, what would be the
result? Lord, didn't they prove that years ago? One side cancels
out the damage of the other by inflicting just as much. Chap called
Napoleon brought artillery into style, or so these French tell me.
Absolutely useless stuff except for pounding down a wall. As useless as
airplanes. Too many casualties and grief for too little fun."

"Fun?"

"Why not? Herrero, give Bulger a hand with his kettles."

The camp was boiling with efficient activity. Carstone's crews were
hard at work upon the pneumatic machine guns. Once they had been run by
gasoline with the hand compressors as auxiliary. But now there was only
the auxiliary. Four men were priming them to full load while Carstone
checked their battered gauges. Born out of the problem that a machine
gun is always located by its noise, the pneumatics had stayed to
solve the problem of scanty ammunition, for they fired slugs salvaged
from British issue in which the powder had decayed. And there were
plenty of such dumps. They were mismatched weapons at best, for their
carriages had been designed for ambitious supersonic weapons which had
been designed to kill at five hundred yards. But these, when their
condensers had failed and their batteries could not be replaced had
long since become part of the European terrain, only the wheels and
mounts surviving.

The lieutenant paced about the clearing, checking up, watching for the
last posts to come in and the first Russian to appear.

And then the Weasel popped up, yelling, "Shell!"

An instant later everyone heard it and then saw it. It was a trench
mortar, tumbling down the sky. Somebody, having pity for a man who
had never seen one, bore Malcolm backward into cover of the caisson.
The bomb struck and exploded, directly in the center of the clearing.
Shrapnel screamed wickedly as it tore through the already-maimed trees.




                              CHAPTER II


In that shower of death it seemed preposterous that any of the hundred
and sixty-eight could have escaped, for the trench mortar was of very
large caliber. But the fragments had barely ceased screaming when men
again populated the clearing. A swift survey showed that only a kettle
and a pack had suffered and the latter but slightly.

"Tou-tou!" said the lieutenant. "Take cover in that passage mouth to
cover us."

"Yess, yess, mon lieutenant."

"Double file, follow me!" cried the lieutenant, striding to the top of
the largest entrance of the fortress. At the top he paused. "All right.
Quickly. Down with you." And he passed his hurrying men by him and
below with a gesture.

A shrill piping, growing stronger, again cleared the place as though
by magic. The three-pounder blazed out and shrapnel again hammered
the wood. But the men were up and hurrying through its smoke before
branches had ceased to fall.

"Pollard!" said the lieutenant.

"Yessir," replied the sergeant major.

"Give a hand. Get down below there, Malcolm. We're all right. All
below, now."

With the sergeant's help, the lieutenant began to pile the dry brush
upon the fire. Mawkey, in the entrance, yelped, "Mortar!"

It burst almost on the fire.

The lieutenant and Pollard slipped out from behind cover and completed
the piling of the brush. Then, with the boxes supported between them,
they began to empty two hundred pounds of assorted and cast-off
bullets through the brush pile. An old device it was, almost as old as
cartridges themselves but oldest things are often the surest.

"Shell!" howled Mawkey.

The piping ended in a roaring flash. The top of a tree leaned slowly
over and then plummeted to earth. The lieutenant, up again, pulled the
glass visor of his Italian helmet down over his face and wrapped his
cloak tightly about him.

"Get down with our people there!" he shouted to Pollard.

The sergeant was reluctant, but he obeyed. By now, because of the
pauses caused by the shells, a few of the cartridges were beginning to
explode in the brush pile. Slugs occasionally made the silk cloak whip
up about the skirt. The lieutenant emptied the last box and dived down
into the entrance.

Behind them a slow firing had commenced to mount in volume.

The lieutenant lifted his visor and thrust through the crowd which was
huddled in the outer chamber. He raised his hand in the honored signal
to follow him and plunged off along a corridor. The pavement was very
uneven, broken up by roots. Here and there steel beams in the roof
had rusted through and let down piles of rubble. About a hundred and
twenty yards up the line they passed a barrack in which tier upon tier
of collapsed bunks still held the skeletons of men who had been caught
by the direct hit of a shell. Above, on another level, the twisted
and corrosion-congealed remains of big guns stood like prehistoric
monsters, forgotten by time.

From observation slots along the way, sheets of light came through,
flicking along the passing column.

"I didn't know any of these were left," said Malcolm in an awed voice.
"I'd heard about them being used once--How many dead there are here!"

"Fortress fever, mutinies--Toward the last the pioneers had a trick of
lowering gas grenades through the observation slots from above."

Malcolm tripped over a sprawled human framework and a shaft of light
caught in the gold of medals as they tinkled down through the ribs. He
hurried on after the lieutenant.

There were whispers about them as the few surviving rats hid from them,
rats once bold enough to attack a sleeping man and tear out his eyes
before he could awake.

       *       *       *       *       *

The column moved quietly. Long ago they had discarded the last of their
hobnails, for these had a habit of scraping against stones and giving
a maneuver away. They kept no step or order of march, for each, as an
individual, had his own concern, his own method of caring for himself,
and so they strung out far. Even though it had been years since such a
fortress had been garrisoned by any of them, they instinctively took
precaution against direct hits on the tunnel roof above them.

The tunnel dipped and, for a little way, they sloshed knee-deep in
water. Shaggy Corporal Carstone, in charge of the machine-gun company,
clucked like a mother hen as he got his precious charges over the rough
places; for while water could do no harm, the tanks were so worn and
thin that one stumble might put them out of action, filled as they were
with their full weight of air.

Now and then the lieutenant struck his flint to find a chalk mark
on the wall and thus determine the right turn, and Malcolm began to
realize that the place had been recently mapped. Malcolm, following
the shadow of the cloak, was struck by the expression which each flint
flash revealed upon the lieutenant's face. For the lieutenant had a
twinkle in his eye and a sardonic smile upon his lips, as though he was
hugely enjoying this business.

Malcolm's ear caught the sound of firing each time they passed an
observation slot, and it began to come to him that the cartridge-filled
brush was burning gradually, thus acting as a time fuse on the bullets.
In truth it sounded as though the clearing far back was being bitterly
defended. He eyed the lieutenant with renewed respect. But for all
that the lieutenant was not a known quantity to him. None of these
scattered officers were. They seemed to be without nerves, impervious
to all anxiety, able to subsist upon nothing. He had heard something of
the officers of yesterday; how they had driven unwilling troops with a
drawn pistol, how they had carried out the stupid orders which always
led to slaughter against heavily fortified objectives. He had heard,
too, that many an officer had been found with a bullet in his back. But
that was yesterday, a yesterday a fifth of a century dead. A yesterday
when prisoners had been shot to avoid giving them rations, when every
slightest spark of gallantry had been swallowed in the barbaric lust of
battle which had swept the Continent as madness might sweep through a
pack of dogs.

It was not that the lieutenant was kind. He merely did not care. His
men did not belong to a government but to himself; just as he belonged
to them. It seemed that all men with nerves had died of them, leaving a
strange corps of beings above such things as human weakness and death,
men who had evolved for themselves a special art of living. Malcolm
had no hopes for the mercies of the lieutenant; they did not exist.
And he was thinking to himself, following that cape, that the race of
fighting men, while laudable in many ways, had degenerated in others.
Their love of battle was quite finished and bravery was a word. For
what better evidence could he have than this fact of the lieutenant's
running away from a force because it had field pieces?

A question annoyed Malcolm. They were outward bound from the last
encampment. But had they any destination? What would they do for food?

       *       *       *       *       *

Ahead a hazy blur of light became apparent. Weeds had choked the exit
from the fortress, and the roof had fallen until it was necessary to
crawl belly down on the rubble to get out.

The lieutenant made a cautious survey. Ahead stretched an indistinct
trench which had once communicated with the rear. It had been dug in a
sloping ravine which fell away to the north. They had come through the
hill on which the Russians had established their P.C.

Stepping aside, the lieutenant passed his men out. Hardly a shrub waved
to mark their presence in the trench. They did not group, but faded
into cover until a very small space, apparently quite empty, contained
the whole force.

"Pollard, take the east slope," whispered the lieutenant.
"Tou-tou--where are you?"

"Here the same, mon lieutenant," said Tou-tou, crawling out.

"You waited for contact?"

"Yess, mon lieutenant. Zey are ssso young, so many."

"Very well. Take the west slope. Work up toward the crest and in one
half hour by the sun you will hear our signal to attack. Carstone,
wait here in case there is any firing from above and cover our retreat
if necessary. If we are successful, come up quickly with your guns.
Weasel, locate their baggage; take six men and be very quiet when you
take the sentries."

"Right, sir."

"Pass the word. First Regiment with Pollard, Second with Tou-tou, Third
with me. Remember, no firing. Only wires, clubs and knives. And do not
kill their commander or the staff."

The word was passed like a gentle draft of air. Then Pollard was gone
and a third of the brigade melted away. Tou-tou's third vanished
without a sound. The lieutenant thrust a stick into the earth to watch
its shadow. The sun was still very low and the mist over the valleys
had not wholly burned away. From over the ridge came the clatter of
rifle fire and the occasional dull thump of grenades.

Presently the lieutenant signaled with his hand and slid out of the
trench and through the underbrush toward the crest. Malcolm stayed by
Carstone.

Spread thin, the Third Regiment slithered silently upward. They could
not yet see the crest, for the way was long and there were several
false ridges. This hillside was very uneven, pock-marked with shell
holes now very indistinct. Everywhere before the advance rabbits
scurried and dived into cover. They were avoided by the soldiers for
the reason that they carried a deadly sickness, and though all were
probably immune, it was not good to take chances. Only the birds with
which the Continent now teemed were good prey, but the soldiers were so
nauseated by their meat by now that they seldom took the trouble to set
snares.

A squeal, scarcely started before it was stopped, told of some
providential soul picking up a pig of the type which had long forgotten
its domestication. These were too rare to be overlooked, but First
Sergeant Hanley, a tough Scot nominally commanding the Third Regiment,
went slipping off on a tangent to reprimand the act.

Mawkey, who had scuttled ahead, came back now, his evil eyes bright
with excitement. "They all face south. There are about six officers
and a guard of thirty soldiers. The artillery is over to your right in
an old field-gun emplacement."

"Gian," whispered the lieutenant to an Italian sergeant with a
perpetually hungry look, "take a company and stand ready to squash the
gunners between Tou-tou and yourself when he comes up."

"Si," bobbed Gian. "I hope they have rations."

"Who ever heard of a Russian who had anything to eat?" said the
lieutenant. "On your way."

Gian was there and then wasn't there. Aside from the distant firing,
there was no sound. The battery above had ceased to bellow some time
ago, being uncertain of the positions of its own troops.

       *       *       *       *       *

The lieutenant glanced at the sun and then thrust another stick into
the center of a flat place and measured the shadow with the spread of
his hand just to be sure. He had three or four minutes left of the
half-hour. He pulled down the visor over his face and the men near him
did the same. There was a slight snicking sound as weapons were checked.

More slowly now the lieutenant brought them forward. Mawkey, at
his side, was trembling with eagerness as he unrolled his favorite
weapon--a stick to which was attached three lengths of light chain
appended by choicely sharp chunks of shrapnel.

They were almost to the crest now, so flat in the tall grass that they
were still invisible to the Russians. The lieutenant checked the sun.
He whistled the trill of a meadow lark three times, paused and then
whistled it again.

There was a yelp of terror, hacked off short, over by the battery. A
second later the grass all about the P.C. erupted with soldiers. A
Russian officer emitted a hysterical string of commands and the thirty
men whirled about to be drowned in a sea of charging men. Two or three
guns went off. The crew of a machine gun valiantly tried to slew
about their weapon and then, seeing it was no use, tossed down their
sidearms.

The commander was a young man of very severe aspect. He started to roar
his complaint and then, seeing a way out, leaped toward the lip of
the ridge. Mawkey's weapon wrapped about his legs and he went down.
Ruefully he disentangled the weapon and began to massage his shins.

It was all over before the dust had had a chance to rise. Thirty
prisoners, one slightly wounded, were disarmed. Tou-tou came up with
the battery crew and reported that Gian was manning the field pieces,
which were six, not two.

"No casualties," reported Tou-tou, grinning.

Pollard, who had been a little tardy, thanks to an unforeseen ravine,
was cross. A runner came up from the Weasel to report that all baggage
was in hand, but that the Russians had surrendered upon seeing
themselves outpointed.

The lieutenant took off his visored helmet, for it was very hot in
the sun, and handed it with his cloak to Mawkey, taking the remnant
of a British flying cap in return. Now that the Russian commander had
regained his composure, the lieutenant called attention to him with a
bow.

"I am indebted to you, sir."

The commander, who spoke fair English, bowed in his turn. "I have been
outmaneuvered, sir. I congratulate you."

"Thank you. Now hadn't we better recall your troops before they
squander all their ammunition on a pile of brush filled with bullets?"

The commander blinked and then recovered, smiling. "So that was the
trick."

"That is the center of an old fortress system," said the lieutenant.

"I did not know the region."

"Which could hardly be expected. We waited for you for three days."

"I apologize for my underestimate of the troops here. We were sent out
some three months ago to carve our way through to the sea and inspect
the region in the hope that food can be shipped inland from here."

"There is no food," said the lieutenant. "In fact, if you can forgive
such sentiment, we attacked you solely because we were informed you had
horses."

"Ah," said the commander, understanding. He turned and rattled an order
to an aid who stood by to hoist a recall flag upon further command.

       *       *       *       *       *

"About the terms," said the commander, "I trust that you follow the
custom of these days."

"All prisoners disarmed and released and all impersonal baggage
retained."

"Sir, although I dislike having to ask further forbearance from a man
I respect, I hope you will allow us to retain our arms. The country
through which we have passed is filled with roving bands of soldiers."

"Of course, you will give me your parole," said the lieutenant,
"and swear on your honor as an officer to return to your center of
government?"

"Certainly. You, perhaps, can give me the data we wish."

"Certainly. And now pardon me. Pollard, man that alcohol gun and send
word to our battery to stand by. Have Weasel bring up the baggage train
to that ravine below there. Your troops," he said, turning back to the
commander, "will be left in possession of their rifles and ammunition.
We shall retain the battery and animals and all impersonal baggage."

"Thank you," said the commander, giving the signal to hoist the recall.
"We shall begin our return at noon. You wish my troops to remain there
in the valley, of course, until they march?"

"Naturally."

"And you say there is no fertile region between here and the sea?"

"On my honor I know of none. England has exhausted herself and is of no
value, and I dare say your own country is in like condition."

"Well--Sir, may I be frank?"

"Of course."

"We were not sent anywhere. We are the last of the imperial White
Russian army which was defeated and thrown out of Moscow five months
ago. The new government, I believe, strictly favored isolation and,
I am certain, is in no position to favor anything else. There is no
government now in Germany, aside from a few scattered officers in
places which were not touched by the many waves of crop-destroying
insects and disease bacteria. Spheres of isolation are being formed
with scorched-earth belts about them. We sought to establish ourselves
in Paris, some two weeks' march from here, but there is nothing there
but starvation. We sought to reach the coast in the hope that the
starvation frontiers had not yet reached there."

"They have."

"For your sake I regret it."

"Where shall you go now?"

"I am not sure, but I am told by stray wanderers that there may be
such regions in Italy. We have been living as we could off the land,
and we can continue to do so. We seem to be wholly immune to soldier's
sickness and for that we are thankful. A serum was developed in Moscow
last year and we have all been given it."

"I trust you find such a place in Italy," said the lieutenant,
extending his hand.

"And luck to you," said the Russian. He bowed and turned on his heel,
marching at the head of his staff and bodyguard down to the waiting
troops in the valley below. With them went their own belongings.

The lieutenant watched from his vantage spot for some time and then,
regaining his good spirits, made a tour of his brigade, pleased as
any commander should be when he has chosen his ground, carried through
an elementary bit of strategy and tactics and found that his men still
behaved well.

That afternoon, with the Russians gone, the lieutenant's forces tasted
the fruits of victory. One and all, they gorged themselves upon
dripping roasts of horseflesh, cooked by a prideful Bulger.




                              CHAPTER III


For eight days the fourth brigade lived off the Russians. It was
not luxurious, but it was better than crumbs scraped out of a
fortress, years in its grave. Apparently the Russians had met and
defeated other forces to the east, for the stores included a kind
of bread, made of bark and wild wheat, peculiar to Rumanian troops
and a wine which Alsatian troops concocted from certain roots.
Too, there were some spare tunics and overcoats, evidently located
in some hitherto-forgotten dump. These, though slightly moldy and
insect-frayed, were most welcome, especially since they were light tan,
a color which blended well with the autumn which was upon them.

But at the end of eight days the brigade began to show signs of
restlessness. Wild geese, in increasing flocks, had begun to wing
southward, and the men lay on their backs, staring moodily into the
blue, idly counting.

The lieutenant paced along a broken slab of concrete which had once
been part of a pillbox commanding the valley. For with the new guns and
even the scarce ammunition, the troops did not need to fear sunlight.

In his ears, too, sounded the honking which heralded an early winter.
And the caterpillars which inched along and tumbled off the guns had
narrow tan ruffs which clearly stated that the winter would be a hard
one. Spiders, too, confirmed it.

It was one of those infrequent times when the lieutenant did not smile,
which heightened the effect of his seriousness. Men moved quietly when
they came near and did not linger but cat-footed away. The battery crew
silently sat along the grass-niched wall and studiously regarded their
boots, only glancing up when the lieutenant went the other way.

All hoped they knew what he was thinking. The winter past had not been
a comfortable one: starving, they had huddled in an all-but-roofless
church, parsimoniously munching upon the stores they had found buried
there--stores which had not lasted through. At that time the Germans
were still making sporadic raids, not yet convinced that their own
democracy could not win out against the French king, but bent more upon
food than glory. The brigade had marched into that town four hundred
and twelve strong.

And now winter was here again, knocking with bony fingers upon their
consciousness. Longingly they looked south and watched to see if the
lieutenant gave any more heed to one direction than another.

Not for their lives would they have bothered him. Even Mawkey stayed
afar. And it came to them with an unholy shock when they saw that a man
had passed through the sentries and was approaching the lieutenant with
every evidence of accosting him. Several snatched at the fellow, but,
imperiously, he swept on.

He might have been a ludicrous figure at a less tense moment. He was a
powerful brute, his massive, hairy head set close down upon his oxlike
shoulders. But about him he clutched some kind of cloak which would
have heeled an ordinary being but only came to his thighs. On his head
he had a cocked hat decorated with a plume. At his side swung a sword.
On his chest was a gaudy ribbon fully two feet long.

Without ceremony he planted himself squarely before the lieutenant and
lifted off his hat in a sweeping, grandiloquent bow.

       *       *       *       *       *

The lieutenant was so astonished that he did not immediately return
the salutation. Carefully he looked the fellow up and down, from heavy
boots back again to the now-replaced cocked hat.

"General," began the intruder, "I come to pay you my respects."

"I am no general, and if you wish to see me, get permission from my
sergeant major. Pollard! Who let this by?"

"A moment," said the hairy one. "I have a proposition to offer you, one
which will mean food and employment."

"You are very sure of yourself, fellow. Are we mercenaries that we can
be bought?"

"Food is a matter of need, general. Allow me to introduce myself. I am
Duke LeCroisaut."

"Duke? May I ask of what?"

"Of a town, general. I received the grant from the king not three years
ago."

"King?"

"The King of France, His Majesty Renard the First. My credentials." And
he took forth a scroll from his cloak and unwound it.

Without touching it, the lieutenant read the flowing phrases in the
flourishing hand.

"Renard the First has been executed these last six months. And I,
fellow, have nothing to do with the politics of France. We waste time,
I think."

"General, do not judge me so abruptly. My town, St Hubert, has come
into the hands of a brigand named Despard, a former private in the
French army, who has seen fit to settle himself upon my people,
oppressing them."

"This is nothing to me. Guard, escort this man beyond the sentries."

"But the food--" said the Duke with a leer.

The lieutenant shook his head at the guard, staying them for a moment.
"What about this food?"

"The peasants have some. If you do as I ask, it shall be yours."

"Where is this town?"

"About a week's march south and west for you and your men; two days'
march for myself."

"You evidently had _some_ troops. What happened to them?"

"Perhaps unwisely, general, I dispensed with their services some months
ago."

"Then you wish us to take a town, set you up and--Here! What's this?"

The fellow had sunk back against the concrete wall. He had been
breathing with difficulty and his hand now sought his throat. His eyes
began to protrude and some flecks of blood rose to his lips. He shook.

"An old wound--" he gasped. "Gas--"

The lieutenant unlimbered his pistol and slid off the catches.

"No! No, no!" screamed the Duke. "It is not soldier's sickness, I swear
it! No! For the love of God, of your king--"

Smoke leaped from the lieutenant's hand and the roar of the shot
rolled around the valley below. The empty tinkled on the stones. The
lieutenant stepped away from the jerking body and made a sweeping
motion with his arm.

"March in an hour. I do not have to caution you to stay away from this
body. Mawkey, pack my things."

"The guns?" said Gian, worriedly glancing at his pets and then
beseechingly at the lieutenant.

"Detail men to haul them. They're light enough. But leave the
three-inch. It would bog before the day was out."

"Si," said Gian gladly.

Shortly, Sergeant Hanley hurried up. "Third Regiment ready, sir."

An old man named Chipper piped, "First Regiment ready, sir."

Tou-tou bounded back and forth, making a final check from the muster
roll he carried in his hand. Then he snapped about and cried, "Second
Regiment ready, sir."

Gian, overcome by new importance, saluted, "First Artillery ready, sir."

But it did not come off so well. The Fourth Brigade's First Artillery,
a unit of .65-caliber field pieces, had been drowned to a man in a
rising flood of the Somme while they strove to free their guns. For an
instant the people here glanced around and knew how small they were,
how many were dead and all that had gone before; they felt the chill in
the wind which blew down from countless miles of graveyard.

"Weasel!" bawled the lieutenant. "Lead off at a thousand yards with
your scouts. Bonchamp! Bring up the rear and shoot all stragglers.
Chipper and Herrero, wide out on the flanks. Fourth Brigade! _Forward!_"

The wind mourned along the deserted ridge, searching out something to
twitch. But nearly all signs of the camp had been destroyed, just as
there would be left no mark along the line of march by which another
force could follow and attack. The wind had to content itself with the
cloak of the dead man which it lifted off the legs time and again, and
the gaudy ribbon which it rippled over the cooling face.

       *       *       *       *       *

Malcolm matched the lieutenant's stride, glancing now and then at the
man's quiet profile. Malcolm could not rid himself of the vision of the
duke trying to stop a bullet with his hands and screaming his pleas for
life.

"Lieutenant," he said cautiously and respectfully, "if ... if one of
your men came down with soldier's sickness ... would you shoot him like
that?" Malcolm clearly meant himself.

The lieutenant did not glance at him. A shadow of distaste dropped over
him and passed. "It has happened."

Malcolm avoided the finality of that statement. "But how would you
know? How _do_ you know that that fellow back there had it? Wouldn't
gas--"

"Yes. It would."

"Then ... then--"

"You've seen men die of soldier's sickness."

"Of course."

"You were in England when the first waves of it came. Over here, when
one man got it, his squad got it shortly after. No one knows how it
travels. Some say by lice, some by air. There was only one way to save
a company and that was to execute the squad."

"But ... but some are immune!"

"Maybe. The doctors who tried to make the tests died of it, also. Let's
have an end of this, Malcolm."

They walked in silence for some time and gradually forgot about it.
They had come to a broad valley matted with young trees. Here and there
stone walls showed brokenly in the undergrowth; less frequently the
gashed sides of a house stared forlornly with its gaping windows. A
city had once flourished here. But the lieutenant's only interest in it
was to see that the squirrels, rabbits and birds, those Geiger counters
of the soldier flourished through it with the ease of familiarity.
It was not radio-active then. Nevertheless the rubble made the
walking hard. And they clung to the outskirts, choosing rather an old
battlefield than the tomb of the civilians. Pounded into the earth by
rain of a dozen years lay an ancient tank, its gun silently covering
the clouds which scurried south.

The men were not in any recognizable formation of march, but there was
a plan of sorts despite the appearance of straggling. Loosely they
formed a circle two hundred yards in diameter, a formation which would
allow both a swift withdrawal into a compact defense unit from any
angle of attack and would permit a swift enveloping of any obstacle
met, the foremost point merely opening out and closing around. But
the movements of the men themselves were quite independent of the
organization, for they marched as the pilot of an ailing plane had
once flown--not from field to field, but from cover to cover. All open
spaces were either traversed at top speed, completely skirted, or else
crawled through. The equidistant posts were very flexible of position
according to the greatest danger of the terrain; these, too, were loose
circles save for the rear guard, which was a long line, the better to
pick up any willful stragglers or extricate any which had been trapped
in the pits with which all this land abounded--pits which had the
appearance of solid ground, built to impede troops and used now by
peasants who found a need for clothing and equipment.

The one officer, if such he could be called, who had latitude of
movement for his small group was Bulger. Bayonet thrust naked and ready
in his belt, helmet pulled threateningly over one eye, filthy overcoat
flapping against his heels, he roved purposefully and thoroughly,
rumbling from flank to flank and beyond, appearing magically inside and
outside the circle of march. He would overrun the vanguard, inspect the
ground ahead and then go rambling off with two or three scarecrows at
his heels to poke into some suspicioned rise of ground and, sometimes,
send a runner back to change the whole route of march to roll over
the place and pick up cached supplies. After a good day Bulger would
begin the evening meal by pulling birds, onions, old cans of beef from
an unheard-of time, moldy loaves and wild potatoes from that overcoat
which seemed to have the capacity of a full transport; for while the
main discoveries had been shared around, Bulger took a joy in personal
collection which outrivaled, if possible, his lieutenant's love of
victory without casualty! These choice bits--and scarce enough they
were--made up, first, the lieutenant's board and, second, the noncoms'
fare. The brigade said of Bulger that he could hear a potato growing at
the distance of four kilometers and could smell a can of beef at five.

       *       *       *       *       *

The brigade flitted swiftly over an exposed chain of embankments which
had been a railroad, long ago shelled out of existence and then robbed
of its rails for bomb-proof beams. Bulger alone paused at the top, his
hairy nostrils quivering avidly. He broke his trance and sped forward,
presently lumbering past the vanguard. Weasel's narrow face popped
alertly from beyond a bush.

"I don't hear anything," complained Weasel.

Bulger touched his nose pridefully and swept on, vanishing into the
undergrowth ahead. As this was the mid portion of the valley, the only
difference of level was a stream. This was revengefully eating away at
an old mill dam, having already toppled the shell-bursted mill down the
bank. But there was no ocular evidence whatever of anything unusual.

Telepathetically quiet, the word skimmed through the brigade and the
route of march shifted. Gian's artillery, which had been annoying its
motive power by forbidding their taking the best cover, was balked by
the stream until Gian, scurrying up and down the bank, found a shallow
bar which had been built up by the downfall of an old bridge.

Bulger and his two scarecrows flickered beyond a screen of willows and
vanished afield; one of the men, as runner, reappeared as a signpost
and was scooped up by the advancing Weasel.

Presently the first sign of habitation was noted by the lieutenant.
A rabbit snare flicked at his foot and sprang free. A moment later
he brushed through a camouflage of small shrubs and was abruptly
confronted by a plowed field. A crude arrangement consisting of a
harness and a twisted stick had been turning back the furrows. A
woman's cap lay on the untouched ground, but there was no other sign
than this and tracks of those who had been there but a moment before.

Like a bear on the scent of a honey tree, Bulger was plunging along the
fringe of wood, searching for a path and failing wholly to find it. The
lieutenant, accompanied by Mawkey, came from cover and joined him.

"I smelled fresh earth," said Bulger, "and here it is. But where the
seven devils is the trail?"

"There," said Mawkey, slightly disdainful. The tunnel looked as if it
would refuse to admit anyone larger than a rat terrier, but Mawkey's
eyes had seen a broken twig and so had been directed to this covered
hole in the undergrowth.

"If they got energy enough to plow, they must have something to eat,"
reasoned Bulger with his usual single-mindedness. And immediately
stooped to paw away the screen.

The lieutenant brought him back by a yank at his boot and, despite
Bulger's size, landed him some ten feet from the hole. There was a
sharp explosion and a crater appeared where the tunnel had been.

Bulger got to his knees looking sheepish.

"I'll be changing your diapers next," said the lieutenant to the
assembled. "Falling for a planted grenade!" He faced about and signaled
Weasel up with the vanguard. "Drop back with your kettles, Bulger, and
be careful you don't drop one on your toe and kill yourself!"

"Wait!" cried Bulger. "Please, sir. Wait! The wind's changed. I smell
wood smoke!"

Weasel tested the air, mouth half open, walking around in a small
circle and looking skyward.

"There!" cried Bulger. "It's stronger now! Real dry wood burning." And,
having redeemed himself, he rumbled after the scent, the slight Weasel
trotting at his heels.

The lieutenant circled his right hand over his head, left hand extended
palm down for caution. A few leaves stirred around the borders of the
field. The brigade was moving up.

Presently one of Weasel's men bobbed out before the lieutenant. "Over
to the right, sir."

The lieutenant swung in that direction and found Weasel and his
vanguard standing around a pit, pulling up one of their number. The
lieutenant gave a searching glance to the immediate surroundings and
stepped forward. The trapped man's leg was bleeding where the stake
at the bottom had gouged him. It was not serious and Mawkey laid the
fellow out and bandaged it, having placed a chunk of spongy pitch in
the wound.

There were some bones in the excavation, but no sign of any equipment.
Alertly the lieutenant paced back and forth over the ground. In a
moment he thrust a stick into a solid-appearing patch and so knocked
the camouflage through. There were bones here as well.

"Pass the word," he said to a runner.

Bulger trundled his excited bulk back to them. "Sir, I have found it.
About eighty houses and a dozen storerooms."

"Lead off."

       *       *       *       *       *

The lieutenant strode along at Bulger's heels, knocking in an
occasional pit and warily avoiding the invitation of clear walkways,
going through brush instead. The wood smoke was apparent to him now,
though elusive.

They came to a flat expanse which was even more brush-covered than the
surrounding terrain. There was nothing whatever to remark the presence
of people and, had they come by earlier instead of at the time of
the evening meal, it is certain they would have missed the village
altogether.

The barest suggestion of heat waved in the air above the place. Only
one wisp of smoke could be seen in the evening air, and the source
of that could not immediately be traced. The lieutenant, from cover,
examined the place minutely and it gradually began to take definite
form for him.

He waited for some time, knowing that the brigade would envelop the
place, and then turned to Mawkey. "I am going forward. Pick out and
mark all the smoke spots and watch for my signal."

He pulled down his visor and drew his pistol. Then, wrapping his cloak
tightly across his chest, he walked into the open! Instantly several
shots snapped at him, two of them striking him and, for an instant,
breaking his pace. Dark had been settling slowly for some little time,
but the first indication he had of it was his ability to see the
flashes from the rifles, which were orange in the half-light. Again
shots drilled savagely around him. They came from the center in their
highest concentration.

"Hello, the leader!" shouted the lieutenant in French.

The firing ceased and from nowhere in particular a voice rose from
the flat earth. "We have no wish to see anyone! Go or we shall use
grenades!"

"You are surrounded by the Fourth Brigade. We have artillery!"

There was a long pause and then, falsely aggressive, the same voice
cried: "Devil take your artillery. We have much to answer!"

A grenade bounded from nowhere to the lieutenant's feet. It exploded
with a bright flash.

The lieutenant lifted himself from the depression some five yards
beyond the place where it had gone off.

"One more chance. Surrender peaceably or take the consequences."

"Go to the devil!"

The lieutenant vanished into another patch of cover which was instantly
raked by fire. He whistled shrilly twice. Instantly the villagers
opened up at the borders of their field. But no shots came in return.
Dusk was dropping swiftly now and it was that period of the day when it
is both too dark and too light to see moving men.

The fire from the hidden emplacements slacked and stopped. Mystified
and none too sure, the villagers conserved their scanty cartridges.

Short calls began to sound throughout the clearing, and the lieutenant
waited until they had done. There was silence then for several minutes.

"We still offer you your chance to give over," stated the lieutenant.
"All we require is billeting and food."

"We haven't changed our minds," said the leader.

"I shall count to ten. If you have not by that time, I cannot answer
for the consequences." And he counted very slowly, to ten. And there
was no reply.

       *       *       *       *       *

These people were tougher than the lieutenant had suspected. Usually
his own careless appearance and the reports were sufficient to shake
resolve. These survivors of all that science and politics could achieve
had become survivor types of a rare order. He shrugged to himself.
Little he cared.

He gave a short whistle in a certain key and there was a faint wave
of movement through the clearing. Then, after a short time, the smoke
began to clear from the air. Presently there sounded some coughs under
the earth. And then more. The smoke which had vanished now began to
thicken in the night. Throughout the village, handfuls of green leaves
had been thrust down the camouflaged chimneys.

The coughing increased as the smoke increased, and there came wails of
despair, the rattle of poles which sought to clear the obstructions,
and the frenzied swearing of men trying to haul the green leaves from
the grates.

The lieutenant lay upon his back and looked at the evening star,
jewel-like in the darkening heavens. Other stars came slowly forth to
make up constellations. A breeze played with the treetops and made them
bow before the majesty of night.

"My general!" sobbed the leader. "We have seen the error of our
decision. What mercy can we expect if we come up now?"

The lieutenant counted the stars in Cephus and began upon the Little
Bear.

"_My general!_ For the love of Heaven, have mercy! There are children
here! They are strangling! What can we expect if we come up now?"

With a sigh, the lieutenant gave his attention to the Great Bear and
tried to make out the Swan, part of which was hidden by the drifting
smoke.

There was a ripping of brush and the thump of a door thrown back and
the clearing was immediately alight and fogged with billowing smoke.
The lieutenant stood up. Soldiers materialized from the earth and
people were herded into weeping, pleading groups. A few madmen gripped
rifles, but were so obviously blinded that no one wasted ammunition
upon them but merely wrenched their weapons away and pushed them into
the crowds.

"Clear the chimneys," said the lieutenant. "Anyone who happens to have
a mask, go below and clear the grates."

"I would never have surrendered," said the leader, groping toward the
voice of command. "But they were going out down there! For the love of
Heaven, don't kill us! We are friendly. Truly we are friendly. We shall
show you the storehouses, give you beds, women, anything, but don't
kill us!"

[Illustration: "_We shall show you the storehouses, give you beds,
women, anything, but don't kill us!_"]

The lieutenant turned away from him in disgust and watched his men
dropping down steps into the earth.

"We have so little but we will give it all!" cried the leader, pulling
at the hem of the lieutenant's cape. "But spare us!"

"Pollard," said the lieutenant, making a slight motion with his hand.
The leader was dragged away.

Presently Sergeants Chipper and Hanley drew up before their commander.
"I guess you can breathe down there now, sir," said Hanley. "At least,
on my side. And I've taken a look at the inhabitants, sir, havin' a
little more time than some people. A scrawney lot but there ain't a
sick one among them."

"This half all cleared, sir," said the veteran Chipper, indignant at
this fancied gibe about his age. "I made damn sure about the bugs. They
still must have insect powder, 'cause there ain't one." He glared at
Hanley.

"Pollard! Billet the men as the huts will take them. Be certain to
collect all weapons and mount a guard upon them. Post sentries at
fifty-yard intervals along the edge of the village."

"Yessir!" said Pollard.

Gian came up, sour because he had had no chance to use his artillery.
"Smoke," he muttered, disgustedly.

"Gian," said the lieutenant as though he had not overheard, "take a
post to the north there on that little rise and hide your guns well.
From there you can rake anything which puts in an appearance--with the
exception, of course, of British troops, providing they are friendly.
We'll depend upon you to give us a sound night's sleep."

Gian brightened and got two inches taller. "Anything, sir?"

"At your discretion."

"Yessssss, ssssssir!"

"Mawkey, locate the leader's house and ask Tou-tou to please post a
sentry over it."

Bulger dashed by, rubbing his hands together and swearing with delight
as he uncovered storehouse after storehouse.

"Come along, Malcolm," said the lieutenant, presently.

       *       *       *       *       *

They followed Mawkey down into the earth and found themselves in a
large but low-ceilinged cavern. The roof was arched, supported by
crudely hewn logs and railroad rails and smoothed off with a coating
of dried white clay. The floor was carpeted with woven willows. Old
fortress bunks were ranged along one wall and covered with army
blankets. The furniture was all of branches, lashed with a kind of
vine, with the exception of the table, which was topped by an old
tank plate and supported artistically with upended one-pounders. The
fireplace was of metal plate built into mud and stone and was fitted
with several ingenious hinged shelves at variant heights above the
grate. Evidently a fireplace was used because it smoked less than a
stove. The utensils which hung about were all military, bearing various
army stamps. Old blackout curtains were so arranged as to divide the
place into sections.

Two other entrances led off, one near the bunks and another at the side
of the outside door. Several pedestals were in place along the walls
below roof cavities just big enough for a man's head; outside these
were armored-car turrets projecting slightly into clumps of brush.
The weapons had already been collected, but their racks occupied a
prominent place. A series of channels edged the bottoms of the walls,
made of bright airplane alloy, to catch any water which might come in
from above.

The hut was more colorful than could be expected, for camouflage paint
brightened the supporting columns and the bunks and table and several
bunches of flowers were about, placed in vases hammered out of large
shells.

The place was lit by an intricate system of polished metal plates
which, in the daytime, brought the light down from the slots and, at
night, scattered around the light from the fireplace.

The lieutenant grinned happily and stood up to the blaze to warm his
hands. The sentry stepped into place at the bottom of the stairway and
Mawkey closed and bolted the passageway doors.

Carstone looked in. "Any orders, sir?"

"Might post a couple of guns at the corner of the clearing to rake it
in case."

"Yessir." He lingered for a moment.

"Yes?"

"I found another pneumatic tank, sir. They use it for water storage."

"Take it along."

"Thank you, sir."

"Ah," sighed the lieutenant happily, getting the weight of his cape
from his shoulders. He unstrapped his helmet and gave it over to Mawkey.

"Near thing, sir," said Mawkey, poking a finger into the cape where a
new slug had gone in exactly upon an old one.

"Mawkey, isn't there any way to get the bullets out of that thing? It
weighs nine hundred pounds more every night I remove it."

"I saw some parachute silk on one of them women, sir. I could cut out
the bullets and wad that stuff for a patch. It'd be safer, sir."

"By all means, Mawkey."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Sir," said the sentry, "there's a bunch of people up here that want to
see you."

The lieutenant made a motion with his hand and the sentry beckoned to
someone up in the darkness. In a moment a woman, followed by two small
children, came down. She looked as bravely as she could at the officers
and then instinctively chose the lieutenant.

"You are our guest, sir," she said in halting English.

"Oh, yes, of course. You live here, eh? Well, there's plenty of room.
By all means, bring your family down."

She looked relieved and made a beckoning motion to the top of the
stairs. Three younger women and another child came down, followed by
a very hesitant young man who stood defensively between two who were
apparently his wives. A fifth woman came, helping a very aged dame
whose eyes gleamed curiously as they inspected the officers. She, too,
turned her attention to the lieutenant.

"You good gentlemen gave us a time," said the old woman in French.

"Hush," said one of the women, terrified at such boldness.

"Well, if they didn't kill us before, they aren't going to kill us now.
Welcome, gentlemen. In payment for our lives these girls will get you a
very good supper."

The five younger ones made haste to tuck the children into the far
bunks, where they lay with their heads submerged and only their wide
eyes showing. An attractive blonde hurried to the fire to replenish it
and, so doing, dropped a stick of wood on the lieutenant's boot. She
backed up, paralyzed.

"Don't mind Greta," said the old dame, sitting down and putting her
toothless chin upon her cane. "She's a Belgian. Pierre brought her back
one day. You can't really blame a Belgian."

"Of course not," said the lieutenant. He looked curiously at the girl
and smiled. Very cautiously she retrieved the piece of wood and cast it
on the fire without again daring to look at him.

The young man had settled himself watchfully in the corner. His hands
were enormous with toil; his eyes were brutish and sunken. He suggested
an animal in the way his shoulders hunched. The girl Greta, sent for
food from the locker at the side, walked clear of him, but he succeeded
in seizing her wrist.

"You clumsy fool," he whispered harshly. "Do you want us all killed? I
would not be surprised if you did that on purpose."

She wrenched away from him, her whole body suddenly like a flame. She
struck him across the mouth and then yanked open the locker door in
such a way that it pinned him in the corner while she got the mask
container of flour.

The old woman was delighted at the young man's discomfiture. "Well! I
have been wondering how she would answer you at last."

"Serves him right," whispered one of the women to another. "Picking up
strays."

Their laughter stretched his intelligence beyond its elasticity and it
soon snapped into rage. As soon as he was released he lunged at her and
began to strike at her, roaring that she had pushed him away too long.
But he stopped with a scream of pain and dropped to the floor, holding
the side of his head. At a sign from the lieutenant, Mawkey had thrown
his chains.

"I'll have no fighting here," said the lieutenant. "Throw him out."

The sentry's fingers fastened about the clod's collar and he was
wrenched toward the door.

"Don't have him killed!" screamed the young man's wives, instantly down
and clutching at the lieutenant's boots. One of the children began to
howl in fright.

With distaste the lieutenant freed himself. Malcolm was grinning at the
predicament. Greta stood with her straight back pressed hard against
the wall, watching the lieutenant.

Pollard was down the steps in an instant with drawn automatic, knocking
the young man out of the sentry's grip and down to the floor once more.
The clod, snarling, rebounded. The room was full of flame and smoke and
sound. The clod was down on his hands and knees, shaking his head like
a groggy bull. He tried to reach Pollard and then, abruptly, the effort
went out of him and he dropped to the mats, kicking straight out with
his legs with lessening force. Pollard rolled him over with his toe.
The arms flopped out and the blood-spattered remains of a face stonily
regarded the beams above.

The two young women who had protested started forward and then checked
themselves, their eyes fixed upon the body. Slowly, then, they turned
and went back to the bunks to quiet the wailing of the young one.

"Everything else all right?" said Pollard, smoothing his rumpled tunic.

"Carry on, sergeant," said the lieutenant, making a small upward motion
with his hand.

Mawkey and the sentry towed the corpse up the steps. One of the women
took a handful of reeds and hot water and cleansed the mat. Malcolm was
gray.

The lieutenant warmed his hands before the blaze and the affair drifted
out of his mind. Greta, eyes lowered, began to mix pancakes.

       *       *       *       *       *

The business of supper went on and soon the lieutenant and Malcolm
were eating at the table while Mawkey squatted over a pannikin in
the corner. The sentry's back was expressive, moving restively and
then springing erect in gladness as his fed relief came down to take
over. The women sat at a smaller table by the fire with the exception
of Greta, who waited with swift, quiet motions upon the officers and
seemed to have forgotten about food. Angrily, at last, the old women
called to her and made her sit against the wall with her dinner.

"You are going far?" said the old woman.

"Far enough," said the lieutenant, smiling.

"You ... you intend to carry away our stores?"

"We won't encumber ourselves with them, madame. An army fights badly
upon a full stomach, contrary to an old belief."

She sighed her relief. "Then we will be able to live through the
winter."

"Not unless you find some other way of disposing of your smoke,"
grinned the lieutenant.

"Ah, yes, that is true. But one does not always find an attack led by
an officer of such talent."

"But on the other hand, one sometimes does." The lieutenant stretched
out his legs and leaned back comfortably, opening up his tunic collar
and laying his pistol belt on the table with the flap open and the hilt
toward him.

The old woman was about to speak again when the sentry snapped a
challenge and then rolled aside on the steps to let Pollard come down.

Pollard, a fiend for duty, stood up censoriously, his long mustache
sticking straight out.

"Well?" said the lieutenant.

"Sir, I have been checking Bulger's count on the storehouses. And--"

"Why count them? We're heading away from here at dawn."

Pollard received this without a blink. "I wanted to report, sir, that
we have uncovered thirty-one soldiers."

"Feed them, shoot them or enlist them," said the lieutenant, "but let
me digest a good dinner in peace."

"Sir, these men were naked in an underground cell. Fourteen of them are
English. They have been used as plowhorses, sir. They say they were
trapped and made slaves of, sir. One of them is balmy and I'm not sure
of a couple more. They been cut up pretty bad with whips. Another says
they're all that's left of the Sixty-third Lancers."

"Dixon! That's Dixon's regiment!" said Malcolm.

The lieutenant sat forward, interested. "Jolly Bill Dixon?"

"That's him," said Malcolm.

"They say he's dead, sir."

"By Heaven--" began Malcolm, starting up.

The lieutenant motioned him back into his chair. "Bring the leader of
this village down here, Pollard."

"Yessir."

The old woman was thumping her cane nervously, her eyes fever-bright.
"General--"

"Quiet," said Mawkey.

       *       *       *       *       *

The room fell very still with only an occasional pop of the fire and
the movement of shadows to give it life. The flame painted half the
lieutenant's face, which was all the worse for having no particular
expression beyond that of a man who has just enjoyed a full meal.

The leader was thrust down the steps in the hands of two guards. His
small eyes were wild and bloodshot and he shook until no part of him
was still. His sudden fright passed and he managed to fix his gaze on
the lieutenant.

"When we came in," said the lieutenant, "I saw evidences of traps.
There were bones in them and no equipment."

"The soldier's sickness! I swear, general--"

"And we have just located thirty-one prisoners. Soldiers you saw fit to
convert into slaves."

"We have so much plowing, so few men--"

"You're guilty then. Pollard, hand him over to those soldiers you
found."

"No, no! Your excellency! They have not been mistreated, I swear it! We
did not kill them even though they attempted to attack us--"

"When you take him out, parade him around a little so that this offal
will know enough to respect a soldier," said the lieutenant.

"Your honor--"

"Carry on, Pollard."

"But your excellency! They'll tear me to pieces! They'll gouge out my
eyes--"

"Am I to blame because you failed to treat them better?"

The old woman leaned toward the lieutenant. "My general, have mercy."

"Mercy?" said the lieutenant. "There's been none of that that I can
remember where peasants and soldiers are concerned."

"But force will be met with force," said the old woman. "This is a good
man. Must you rob this house of both its men in one night? What will we
do for a leader? There are only seven hundred of us in this village and
only a hundred and fifty of those are men--"

"If he is alive by morning, let him live. You have your orders,
Pollard."

"I'll give them full rights!" wailed the leader. "A share in the
fields, a voice in the council--"

"You might communicate that to those fellows," said the lieutenant
to Pollard. "No man is good for a soldier if he allows himself to be
trapped in the first place. Carry on."

The leader was led away and the lieutenant relaxed again. Greta filled
his dixie with wine and he sipped at it.

The other women in the room were very still. The children did not cry
now. The fire died slowly down.

Shortly there was a commotion at the top of the steps and the sentry
lounging there reared up with his rifle crossed, barring passage to
several men who seemed to desire, above all things, to dash down and
worship the officer who had set them free. Finally understanding that
the guard would have none of them, they went away.

"--a voice in council," the leader was saying, falsely hearty. "For
some time I've kept my eye on you--Glad to have such an addition--"

The women in the room started breathing again. A child whimpered and
was caressed to sleep. Wood was tossed upon the fire and the room
became cheerfully light.

"You are a very good man, my general," said the old woman in a husky
voice.

Greta sat in the recess of the chimney seat, her lovely body perfectly
still, her eyes steady upon the lieutenant.

[Illustration: _Greta sat in the recess of the chimney seat, her
lovely body perfectly still, her eyes steady upon the lieutenant._]

       *       *       *       *       *

A long time after, the lieutenant lay in the bunk farthest from the
door, gazing at the dying coals upon the grate, pleasantly aware of a
suspension in time. Tomorrow they would again be on the march, heading
back to G.H.Q. and an uncertain finish. He was quite aware, for the
first time, that the war was done. He was aware, too, with ever so
little sadness, that England and his people were barred to him, had
rejected him, perhaps forever.

The fire died lower and most of the people of the household slept,
the women in the tiers of bunks near the steps, the children with
them. Malcolm was rolled in a blanket by the fire. At the far end of
the dwelling in a wide bed which had been shaken and dusted well the
lieutenant watched the fire dying. He watched through a slit in the
curtains which masked him from the remainder of the room.

He was unconsciously aware of Mawkey lying just behind the slit as an
active barrier to anything which might seek to approach his invaluable
and beloved commander. There was a rustle of parachute silk and
the creak of a bunk in the forward partition of the room. And the
lieutenant was suddenly alert, but not to danger. Naked feet fell
uncertainly amongst the reeds. The fire threw the curves of a shadow
softly on the curtain. The footsteps came nearer.

As the snake strikes, Mawkey fastened savagely on her ankle as she
would have crossed to the lieutenant. It was Greta.

The lieutenant raised himself on his elbow and whispered hoarsely, "Let
her go, you fool!"

Mawkey came to himself. Her skin was soft under his hand and her
fingers held no weapon. In the soft firelight the parachute silk
revealed the rondeur of a lovely body. Mawkey shamefacedly withdrew his
hands. And when again she had her courage up she stepped over him and
went on toward the large bed in the deepest recess of the room.

Mawkey drew the curtains shut as he rolled outside them. For a little
he listened to the whispers, then at last, the girl's soft rich laugh.
He smiled, pleased.

One by one the glowing coals went out. Mawkey slept.




                              CHAPTER IV


Through the morning, the brigade mounted ridge after ridge, keeping
to no definite course but working toward a certain objective by arcs
and angles. It was hot work and, to Malcolm, senseless, for they only
succeeded in exposing themselves to several random shots by hopeful
snipers in high rocks who vanished like their powder smoke upon
approach--wanderers who coveted a knapsack or two, could they drop it
into a ravine and beyond the immediate concern of the troops.

It had taken Malcolm only forty-eight hours of fast traveling to get
from the G.H.Q. to the Fourth Brigade, and it was taking the lieutenant
interminable days of circuitous march to make the return. Malcolm had
followed the high ground with a relief map. It would be very different
when _he_ had this command, he thought.

Malcolm's crossness was not lost upon the lieutenant, but it did
not wear upon him until they halted wearily at noon on a hill which
commanded all approaches.

"What's the matter?" said the lieutenant.

Malcolm looked at him innocently. "Nothing."

"Come on, have it out."

"Well--I think you should have had that village leader shot. Dixon was
our friend."

The lieutenant knew that this was a dodge, but he answered. "We had no
evidence that those people killed Dixon. Jolly Bill was entirely too
good an officer to be rolled down by peasants."

"I never knew you needed evidence to execute a man."

"To put you straight on the matter, I did execute him. Now, are you
satisfied?"

"How's this? Why, I saw him with my own eyes bidding us good-by."

"And you saw Tou-tou issuing their rifles to the thirty-one Pollard
dug out of the ground. Tell me, Malcolm, why should I thicken up the
atmosphere of that hut any further and so annoy myself when the task
was clearly finished at the release of the prisoners? Peasants do
strange things. While we were there, there might have been an incident
of some sort if the leader had been killed. It is done, anyway."

"You mean those soldiers--"

"Of course. The village, you might say, has passed under a military
regime. And why not? There were few enough men there when we arrived.
They should appreciate the additional thirty-one. And who knows but
what the place may become all the stronger therefore? However, such
matters are outside my domain."

Malcolm was not mollified in the least. He gazed very uneasily at the
lieutenant, suddenly unsure in the presence of such cold thoroughness.
In fact, he began to feel sorry for the leader, forgetting completely
that he had trapped soldiers and enslaved them.

"Sometimes I don't understand you," said Malcolm. "Maybe it is because
I have been less long at the front than you. Maybe I'm just a staff
officer and always will be. But--Well, you're not consistent. You were
courteous to the Russian commander and yet you treated the village
leader like a cur."

The lieutenant had not thought about it. Mawkey came up and spread
lunch out on a rock and the two officers ate silently for some
time. The lieutenant finished and sat back, looking down across the
autumn-colored valley without really seeing it.

At last, he spoke. "I suppose it was because I felt that way. Maybe
there are so few of the officers' corps left that we have a feeling we
ought to preserve ourselves. Maybe it's because all officers have been
taught the necessity of exalting their rank and being as above that of
the civilians. Civilians started all this mess anyway, didn't they?
Bungling statesmanship, trade mongering, their 'let the soldier do the
dirty work' philosophy, these things started it. The Russian was a
fellow craftsman. But the leader of that village commune--Bah! A stupid
blunderer, raised up from filth by guile, a peasant without polish or
courage--The thought revolts me." He was silent for a while, staring
out at the painted slopes. And then: "There are so few of us left."

Malcolm, a little awed now by the quiet sadness he had drawn forth,
could not venture to carry it forward. He had been dwelling, in the
main, upon this circuitous marching and had not quite the courage to
speak boldly in criticism of a commander in the field.

       *       *       *       *       *

All that afternoon they stole wraithlike through the wilderness,
beating up only rabbits and birds. But by night they had come into a
one-time industrial area which scarred the earth for a mile around
with the fragments of buildings and machinery.

Although this city had been splattered into atoms at the very beginning
of the war, it had been rebuilt, in lessening degree, in each lull
which followed in order to utilize the coal here found. But after each
retreating army had damaged the mines turn after ceaseless turn, at
last they were wholly unworkable.

Water tanks leaned crazily--great blobs of rust against the sky.
Buildings were heaps of rubble, overgrown with creeping vines and brown
weeds. Within a few years the place would be swallowed except for the
few battered walls which made ragged patterns against the hazy dusk.
Fused glass crunched under foot and twisted chunks of metal attested
the violence of thermite bombs and shells.

The brigade, having ascertained that the place was not radio-active,
filtered through the tangle, alert and silent. Gian's men sweated the
light guns over the unevenness, cursing both guns and the laborious
works of man.

The lieutenant caught sight of the Weasel's runner signaling him ahead
from the side of an overturned railroad car. He quickened his pace and
followed the fellow up to the vanguard.

Weasel, his small self very still, pointed mutely to a crazily
suspended railroad rail which jutted out from a wall like a gibbet. It
was a gibbet.

Four soldiers, their necks drawn to twice their length, were rotting in
their uniforms, swaying to and fro in the gentle wind. Below them was a
painted scrawl upon the stone:

                          SOLDIERS! MOVE ON!

"British," whispered Pollard, coming up.

The lieutenant looked around. Ahead he could see the mine entrances
and piles of waste which bore lines like trails. He gave the place a
careful scout and returned to his men.

"I hear people down there," said Weasel, ear to earth.

A bullet smashed into the truck of a car and went yowling away like a
broken banjo string.

"I think," said the lieutenant, "that this is a very good place to
spend the night. _Gian! Guns front into action!_"

       *       *       *       *       *

All the following day and the day after, Malcolm was increasingly
morose. He had encountered a problem which he could not solve and it
was giving him nerves. He had known the lieutenant very casually at
Sandhurst when they were sixteen and cadets. But he did not remember
such a man as this, rather, a somewhat quiet, cheerful lad with only a
hint of the devil in his eyes. But the blank had been filled by seven
battle-some years, two for the lieutenant in England, five for Malcolm.
And the five which the lieutenant had spent on the Continent seemed to
have forged a steel blade which might stab anywhere.

It was all so irrational! Malcolm had counted on his order and the
habit of obedience to the source to bring the lieutenant back. That
and tales about what Victor wished to do for the lieutenant. But the
lieutenant's mind was not one to run in grooves or to be duped, and
here he was, walking back to a loss of command! And Malcolm was fairly
certain now that the lieutenant _knew_ what was waiting for him. Hadn't
the lieutenant failed to take any cognizance of the general orders
to reorganize on the outline of the B.C.P.? Hadn't he been all too
successful in his campaigning--too successful to be safe? Certainly
such a man, asserting such independence, could not be left with a body
of troops while the general staff was so weak.

And Malcolm was suffering from jealousy. He was used to a close
understanding between an officer and his troops, yes, but these fellows
actually seemed to wriggle when the lieutenant saw fit to look at them.
It was rather disgusting. Well, that would be changed. They'd recognize
their rights, these fellows, and know that the new order of things
was best. A clever officer was better off under a committee than he
was by himself, for he could always manipulate the membership of that
committee with benefit to himself and could always blame all failure
upon it. Soldiers were such stupid brutes.

Malcolm could understand that the lieutenant was not anxious to check
in at G.H.Q., in the light of what he must know. But why, then, didn't
he just quietly put a bullet in Malcolm and head south, forgetting that
any organization such as G.H.Q. ever existed?

This devious traveling was an annoyance to a man who feels he is
constantly being put off from control of his command. And Malcolm
had thought about it so often and so long that he was now under the
impression that he was truly commanding here and so every order from
the lieutenant came as a definite affront.

Then, damn it, those people in that first village had instinctively
turned to the lieutenant! And the people there at the mines, even
though they had been terribly knocked about in the short fight, had
calmed into quiet obedience as soon as the lieutenant confronted them
with his orders.

And last night, when they had raided that old fort, the noncom in
charge had almost licked the lieutenant's boots!

This brigade was all wrong. Their haversacks were stuffed. Forty
impressed carriers were lugging the guns and the carts of provisions.
It was glutting itself from the best in the countryside, poor as that
best was, but it was also marching and fighting like people possessed.
What was the sense of that when a two-day fast march would take them
across the looted soil which stood like a band around G.H.Q.? What use
did the lieutenant have for all this loot?

That night, secure in a cave-pocked hill which had been taken by
assault with the loss of only one man and that a carrier, Malcolm
brooded long. He felt he had a very definite quarrel with the
lieutenant and, the way Malcolm stood with Victor, a quarrel which
would very soon be settled.

       *       *       *       *       *

The G.H.Q. of the B.E.F. in France was the only thing of permanence
which had survived the last mass bombardments. It had been constructed
under the direct supervision of the general staff some fifteen years
before and was, therefore, probably the only safe refuge in this, now
borderless, country. Every artifice discovered for camouflaging and
armor-plating a fortress had gone into its making, until neither shell
nor gas could make the slightest impression upon it. And its deepest
recesses were even proof against atom bombs and radio-active dust.
Sickness and bacteria only took toll of men.

Spreading some fifty thousand square yards under the earth, it occupied
the better part of a rocky hill. No chamber in it was less shallow than
eighty feet and all chambers were designed to withstand, at a blow, the
combined blasts of twenty town busters. The appointment had overlooked
nothing by way of safety and so the G.H.Q. had remained stationary,
quite some distance from the wreck of Paris and still far enough from
the sea to prohibit attack from that quarter. The thirty-nine generals
who had, in turn, commanded here, had only lacked provision for the
prevention of casualty through politics.

Every ventilator was a fortress in itself, guarded by an intricate
maze of filters which took all impurity from the air. In addition to
this, each chamber contained oxygen tanks sufficient for a hundred men
for one month. Water was plentiful, for the place was served by half a
dozen artesian wells, two of which operated on their own pressure. The
lighting was alcohol driven with a helio-mirror system as auxiliary.
The communications alone had been neglected, for provision had been
made for telephones and radio only, whereas the lines of the former
had long gone dangling for want of copper and the latter had been
useless when storage batteries for field receivers had gradually become
exhausted, never to be replaced. Radio communication was occasionally
established even yet with England, but the occasion for this had now
vanished.

Outwardly the place was just a hill, the countryside about rather torn
up by constant shelling and bombing and the approach too open to be
attempted. There were a dozen such rises in the neighborhood and many
an enemy pilot had mistaken one for the other until the whole terrain
was similarly marked. The rusty wrecks of charred tanks and crumpled
planes gradually merged with the mud.

In short, the place was an ideal G.H.Q. The generals, in perfect
safety, could send the army out to die.

When the lieutenant had last seen it, it had been summer. But the
effect of gas upon undergrowth was enough to make little difference
between summer and late autumn.

A drizzle of rain was turning the flats into bogs and obscuring the
horizon and the brigade marched with helmet visors down and collars up,
more because it was habit than because their thin clothing could keep
out the wet. They had only had a morning of this but still they were
all of a color, and that was of mud.

But there were no complaints to be heard, for the rains had held off
much longer than usual this fall, and because an outfit whose bellies
are full would not feel right unless something bad came along with the
good.

At one time, out this far, there had been photoelectric sentries
and land mines, but as these had worn out and had been exploded by
occasional attacks, they had not been replaced. In fact, the brigade
was almost upon the hill itself before they were descried.

"Soldiers," sniffed Weasel to Bulger in derision. "We could have walked
in and stole their socks if we'd been trying."

"They get that way," said Bulger. "That was always the trouble with
forts. Eight years ago I said it always happened. They feel so safe
they don't even bother to watch. You give a soldier a full belly and
some sandbags to dig into and he goes to sleep."

"Naw, he don't," said Weasel. "He sits around and thinks, and pretty
soon he's got it figured out that he's a Communist or a Socialist or a
Individualist, and the next thing you know he shoots the officers and
changes the government. I says we'd still have a king in England if
they hadn't had bases to bore the soldiers to death. It ain't fightin'
that ruins governments. It's eatin'."

"There ain't nothin' wrong with eatin'," said Bulger, defensively.

"Not when there's fightin'. All eat and no fight makes Tommy a
politician."

"They ain't doin' much eatin' around here," said Bulger, having come
within surveyal distance of the first sentry.

Indeed, the man was very gaunt. His buckle was fastened around his
spine and his cheeks showed the outline of his teeth. There was a
dreary hopelessness about him, and when he was supposed to port his
arms he lifted the rifle up an inch or two to show that he knew he
should and let the lieutenant through without so much as whispering to
turn out the guard.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Fourth Brigade went down the incline into the earth, gun wheels
rumbling up the echoes. They paused in the first chamber until an
officer came out of the guardroom.

[Illustration: _The Fourth Brigade went down the incline into the
earth, gun wheels rumbling up the echoes._]

"Fourth Brigade?"

"Right," said the lieutenant.

"I am Major Sterling. Oh, Hello, Malcolm. By George, old chap, we
wondered what on earth had happened to you."

"We took a personally conducted tour of Europe," said Malcolm, for
the first time feeling at ease when in the lieutenant's presence, and
therefore giving vent to what he really thought.

"Well, now. We waited. Couldn't see what had happened. But you're here,
and that's what matters. Malcolm, if I were you, I'd quarter my men in
the north section. We've got sixteen hundred here, all told, and you
make almost eighteen hundred. Most everyone is quartered in the north
section in those old thousand-man barracks. It's quite light and roomy
now and it's better that everybody is together."

The lieutenant was not particularly surprised that the major should
call them Malcolm's troops; he was only annoyed by the actual fact.
They were not Malcolm's yet.

"Sergeant Major Pollard," said the lieutenant. "You will quarter the
brigade in the north section. I shall be in to make an inspection as
soon as I have paid my respects to General Victor."

"Yessir," said Pollard. "And the carriers, sir?"

"Retain them until further orders. I daresay they're happy enough."

"Yessir." He hesitated, and then saluted and turned away. He had not
quite dared wish the lieutenant luck, no matter how much he wanted to
do so.

The lieutenant looked at Sterling. He did not like the fellow. General
Victor had brought rabble with him instead of a staff. Every bootlicker
that had skulked throughout the war in the shelters of London had been
ousted by the last reversal of government. Sending a man to France
since the quarantine was tantamount to exiling him for life. None of
these fellows had seen real war. They had dodged bombs and fawned upon
superiors. In the latter they had become very adept.

Long ago, the last competent officer had taken the field. And now,
where were they? Adrift somewhere in Europe or deposed and languishing
here without command.

Major Sterling was not quite able to bear the censure which was leveled
upon him by the lieutenant's eyes, nor did he like the slight smile
which lingered about the mouth. There were around eighty-seven field
officers still unreported and it was apparent now that they would
never report; why, then, should a man with a record as brilliant as
the lieutenant's come back? Only twenty-one fragments of organizations
had come in, and these because of starvation. But the Fourth Brigade,
quite obviously, was not starving. However, it was a strange thing,
this habit of duty.

"This orderly will show you your quarters," said Major Sterling. "You
will please prepare a written report and send it, by him, to the
adjutant colonel."

       *       *       *       *       *

Dismissed, the lieutenant looked for a moment at Malcolm who, very
obviously, was on his way right now to see General Victor. Malcolm,
too, was unable to support the directness of those eyes. The lieutenant
followed the orderly and Mawkey followed the lieutenant.

They went deeper into the labyrinth, along dank corridors which long
had gone unswept and unlit. Here and there the concrete had faulted
and drips of water were outlined by a pattern of moss. Row upon row of
officers' apartments were musty with disuse, their doors, untouched for
two years and more, sagging out from their weary hinges. The lieutenant
remembered this place from its yesterdays. Five years before, when
England had sent her last flood of men to the Continent and when the
army here was still great and proud, these corridors had resounded
with cheerful voices and hurrying boots; sergeant majors had bustled
along to receive or to obey orders; subalterns' dog-robbers worried
themselves frantic as they raced about with hot water and laundry;
canteen runners had flashed along with their trays of drinks; and
officers would have popped forth as the word raced along to give him
greeting and beg for news.

It was all quiet now. Not even a rat scuttled in the dead gloom. These
voices which should have called out a welcome were forever stilled,
these faces were decomposed in some common grave out in the endless
leagues of mud. Only the ghosts were here, crying a little, naked and
cold and forgotten--or was it just the wind?

The runner tiredly indicated a door and slumped down on the bench
outside as though the effort had been too much. Mawkey entered and
finally found the trap which opened the helio-mirror.

The apartment was littered with scraps of baggage, Gladstones and
locker trunks and valises. It had been a long while since they had
been ransacked for valuables and the mold was thick and clammy upon
them. Useless knicks, dear only to their dead owners, were thrown
carelessly about. A large picture of a girl lay in the center of the
room. A careless foot had broken the glass and the dampness had seeped
in to almost blot the face with dirt. A sheaf of letters were scattered
about, crumpled and smudged; one on the table was decipherable only as
far as "My dearest Tim. I know this will find you safe and--" A pair of
boots, too well-tailored to be comfortable, stuck out from the lid of a
locker. But the rats had eaten the leather nearly to the soles.

The lieutenant leaned against the table while Mawkey tried to
straighten the place by heaving everything into a trunk. The
lieutenant's eyes wandered up and fastened upon a stenciled box, the
last piece of baggage upon the rack, where all of it had been placed so
carefully so long ago.

                           FORSYTHE, A. J.,
                   Col. Cmmdg. 4th Brigade, 2nd Div.
                           10th Army Corps.
                                B.E.F.

For an instant there flashed across the lieutenant's memory the picture
of a straight-backed, gray-mustached soldier, trying hard not to show
the agony of his wound as he looked levelly at the lieutenant.

"It is up to you now, son."

       *       *       *       *       *

Suddenly the lieutenant was filled with a great restlessness.
Angrily, he swept the litter from the table and began to pace back
and forth from wall to wall. Mawkey was startled, for he had never
seen his lieutenant give way to any emotion before which even
slightly resembled nerves. Hastily the hunchback finished cramming the
refuse into the trunk and got the baggage out of the way. He set the
lieutenant's effects upon a bunk and got out the razor and some clean
clothing and started away to see if he could find any hot water.

"I'm not changing," said the lieutenant.

Mawkey looked at the mud-caked cape and the crusted boots and then
turned back to put away the clean clothes.

"Get me some paper."

Mawkey found some in the refuse and smoothed it out upon the table. He
put a pencil down and pulled up a chair.

The lieutenant sat and wrote.

    Report 4th Brigade May to Nov. 1
    To General Commanding B.E.F.
    From Lieutenant Commanding 4th Brigade.
    Via Adjutant Colonel, official channels.

    1. The 4th Brigade patrolled region north of Amiens.

    2. The 4th Brigade met and defeated several commands of enemy
    troops.

    3. The 4th Brigade provisioned itself on the country.

    4. The 4th Brigade now numbers 168 men, 5 senior noncoms, 1
    officer.

    5. The 4th Brigade, on receiving orders, reported to G.H.Q.

                                                     Commanding Officer
                                                           4th Brigade.

Mawkey gave the report to the runner, who slouched off with it
trailing limply from his fingers.

"Beg pardon, sir," said Mawkey.

"Well?"

"I don't like this, sir."

The lieutenant looked at him.

"That Captain Malcolm, sir. He is thought pretty well of here, I
think. He is a staff officer. One of them thoroughgoing politicians,
beggin' your pardon, sir."

"Well?"

"I am pretty sure that everybody is getting ready to leave this
place. The men look starved and there ain't anything in the country
around here. I think that is why we were called back. Beggin' the
lieutenant's pardon."

"And what of that?"

"I think Captain Malcolm is going to be given command of the brigade,
sir. He acted like that and he ain't any field officer. He's weak and
he's soft and all he knows how to do--"

"You are speaking of an officer, Mawkey."

"Beg pardon, sir. But I'm speakin' of one of them staff things that
come over a couple of years ago. And the B.C.P. was always so rotten
that whatever they wanted to get rid of must've been pretty--"

"Mawkey!"

"Yessir."

Mawkey withdrew and began to fuss with the forgotten baggage, seeing
if there was anything there that his lieutenant could use. Now and
then he bent a glance at his officer. Plainly he was worried.

In two hours the runner dragged himself up to the door to announce
that the lieutenant was ordered to report to the adjutant colonel and
the officer followed him.

As they passed that batman by the door, Mawkey whispered: "Be careful,
sir."

       *       *       *       *       *

They went down, down, down into the earth until it seemed that the
staff of G.H.Q. wanted to be as close as possible to the devil. The
lieutenant noted the emptiness and filth of the fortress in general
and was inclined to agree with Mawkey that the place would soon be
abandoned.

They came at last to the office of the adjutant colonel, a place
wholly encased in lead plate so that voices repeated themselves
hollowly and endlessly. This room did not bear the same stamp as
the rest of the fortress. The five juniors who sat at desks in the
outer chamber did not appear to be starved. Their uniforms were
strictly regulation and, if a little old, were not much worn; they
had had, after all, the whole fortress to pick from. There was
something unhealthy about these fellows which the lieutenant could
not immediately recognize. He was used to men tanned by wind and sun
and darkened with dirt, men who had hard faces and wasted few words
or actions. These faces were like women's, and not very reputable
women at that. They seemed to be somewhat amused by the lieutenant's
appearance and, as soon as he had passed, went back to their ceaseless
chattering.

The adjutant colonel's name was Graves and certainly he resembled
nothing more than an undertaker. He sat at his desk as though it was
a coffin and he was melancholy about the dear, dead deceased. He was
a dark, small, greasy man and his eyes were not honestly evil like
Mawkey's; they were masked and hypocritical.

Graves showed scant attention to the lieutenant, but required him to
stand for some minutes before the desk before he saw fit to glance up.
Then he did not speak, but sent a junior in to find if the lieutenant
could be seen.

The junior came back and Graves stood up. Graves went down the hall
and stepped into a larger office encased in even thicker lead plate.

"Officer commanding the Fourth Brigade, Second Division, Tenth Army
Corps," said Graves. He beckoned the lieutenant to follow him in.
Another junior announced them in the inner chamber and then the
lieutenant was beckoned into a large room.

A table occupied most of the space and about the table sat men much
like those in the adjutant's outer office. They were all shaven and
brushed and anointed and wore their insignia conspicuously. They
wanted no mistake made about their rank, which was high, or their
staff position, which they thought was high.

The lieutenant was sensible of their regard and knew they were staring
somewhat dismayed at the mud which caked the battle cloak and the
boots and the dirt which stained the unshaven face. It did not come
to them immediately that the lieutenant's hands were covered by the
cape and that the cape was bullet proof. It was very unseemly that he
should come so armed, and censure was directed at the adjutant, all in
silence.

General Victor, a very small and dehydrated man with too large a head
and too small a mouth, sat at the head of the table. He glanced once
at the lieutenant and then, finding that the eyes had a shocking
power, hastily returned to a perusal of reports. He did not much
like these field officers. They came in smelling of battle and full
of comment upon their orders and generally made a man feel unsure of
himself.

       *       *       *       *       *

The lieutenant thought that this looked more like a court-martial than
a conference. He caught sight of Malcolm, now beautifully groomed,
standing against the wall, looking carefully disinterested.

A colonel named Smythe, on Victor's right, glanced to Victor for
permission and then, receiving it, turned to the lieutenant. In
Smythe's hand was the lieutenant's report.

"This is very little to submit," said Smythe.

"It is complete enough," said the lieutenant.

"But you give no detail of casualties or desertions or troops fought."

"I knew you wouldn't be interested," said the lieutenant.

New interest came into the eyes about the table, for the lieutenant's
tone was not in the least tempered with courtesy.

"Come now," said Smythe, "give us an account. We must know what troops
there are out there which might impede our movements."

"There are about a thousand Russians heading south to Italy. They
are the last of the Imperial White Russian army. You might possibly
contact them, but I doubt it."

"That's better," said Smythe, with a toothy smile which made him
look very much like a rabbit. "Now, we have had reports about roving
bands of soldiers, without officers, who have been laying waste the
countryside. Have you met some of these?"

"Why should I?"

"Why should you? My dear fellow, it is the duty--"

"I was ordered to return here. I think the countryside will take care
of those who still remain of the enemy--and of our own troops, too."

"We did not request an opinion," said Smythe.

"But you have it," said the lieutenant. He had been taking accurate
stock of the room and had found that four enlisted men were posted at
the board and that two others stood behind Victor.

"What are those fellows doing here?" demanded the lieutenant, with a
motion in their general direction.

"The Soldiers' Council representatives," said Smythe. And then, with
sarcasm: "Of course, if you object--" The titter about the board
pleased him.

The representatives were witless-looking fellows, rather better
fed than their compatriots of the barracks. They did not instantly
perceive that they had been affronted, and when they did it was too
late.

"We have a report here," said Smythe, "that you failed to organize, at
any time, or permit the organization of a soldier's council in your
brigade. Is that true?"

"Yes."

"And I believe, according to the record here, that we sent out a man
named Farquarson, a private, to help organize such a council in your
brigade. He does not seem to be with you now and we can get no word of
him from your troops."

"He was killed," said the lieutenant.

"What's this?"

"If you'd sent a soldier he might have lived a while. But as it was,
the first time we were under fire he was shot."

"You infer that you--"

"I infer nothing, gentlemen. It was not necessary to shoot the trouble
maker myself. It takes a man to live these days." And he looked around
the board, plainly not finding any.

       *       *       *       *       *

Smythe and the general put their heads together and whispered,
glancing at the lieutenant the while. Then Victor whispered something
to the officer on his left, who whispered to the next, and so on about
the board. At last Smythe had it back again and whispered to the two
soldiers back of the general, who both nodded stupidly.

Squaring himself about, Smythe addressed the lieutenant. "We have come
to the conclusion that you are incompetent in the direction of your
command, sir. We have decided that you shall be removed from that
office. Because you have not sufficient rank to be attached to the
staff, you will consider yourself as a supernumerary to the garrison
without duties and, consequently, on half rations."

"And my command?" said the lieutenant.

"Will be provided for carefully. I believe Captain Malcolm here is
better fitted for the duty. The Fourth Brigade will be assimilated as
a company by the First Brigade of the First Division of the First Army
Corps and will be stricken from the Army List. You will please turn
over to Captain Malcolm your records and standards."

"Gentlemen," said the lieutenant, "your wishes are law. May I ask one
question?"

"Certainly," said Smythe, somewhat mollified by this statement, which
he took to be complete acquiescence.

"You intend to leave this place. I can perhaps give you some data
upon the conditions of the surrounding countryside, where you can get
provisions and so on."

"I am afraid we do not need your advice," said Smythe. "But there
is no reason not to tell you that we intend to take a certain area
far to the south which is reported to be fertile. And, by the way,
lieutenant, I do not believe there is any occasion for you to revisit
your own troops. The guard will be informed to include your name on
the list of those barred from communicating with the men. There are
several of your field officers here, and we can't have any trouble,
you know."

"I am barred--"

"Certainly. It is necessary. Colonel Graves, will you please make
certain that even his batman is sent to the barrack before the
lieutenant returns to his quarters."

"This, then," said the lieutenant, "is arrest!"

Smythe shrugged. "That is a hard name. You do not seem to share our
political views and as such your opinion must, of course, be isolated.
Your room probably should be changed as well."

"Does it come to you that you gentlemen may regret this?"

"Come, come," said Smythe, amused. "No threats, now. You are excused,
lieutenant."

Captain Malcolm could not help smiling over his complete victory.




                               CHAPTER V


The lieutenant discovered his quarters moved to the south passages, at
the greatest possible distance from his troops. Of Mawkey there was no
sign, only the pack on the table showed that he had been there.

When the orderly had shuffled away, the lieutenant unfastened his
cloak from about his shoulders and dropped it to the table. He put
his helmet upon it but he did not remove his side arms. It had rather
amused him that nobody had quite dared to ask for his weapons, but
now even that faded. Dispiritedly he sat down on a stool and began to
clean the mud from his boots with a splinter from the table.

That he was preoccupied completely showed when it had become apparent
that he was not alone in the room. The oversight, when he noted it,
alarmed him for it indicated how the grip on himself had slipped. This
would never do. An officer with nerves was a dead officer.

A large, hopeless-looking youth swung his legs down from an upper
bunk. He seemed to have lost all pride in both self and appearance,
for his blond hair was matted and snarled and his greasy tunic was
buttoned awry where it was buttoned at all. His dull insignia showed
that he was a subaltern. He looked disinterestedly at the lieutenant.

From the bunk opposite another pair of legs showed and the lieutenant
glanced in that direction. This second officer was a major, probably
in his thirties, though his hair was already gray. He, too, was a big
man, bearing that stamp of hopelessness which characterized the first.
A black patch covered the place where his left eye had been and his
left sleeve was tucked into his belt. But he still took care of his
person, for his mustache was carefully trimmed and his jowl blue with
the razor. His right eye brightened.

"May I introduce myself?" he said. "I am Major Swinburne and that lad
there is Mr. Carstair, an Australian."

"Pleased," said the lieutenant, going back to work on his boots.

"What organization?" asked Major Swinburne.

"Fourth Brigade, Second Division, Tenth Army Corps, commanding."

"Well, well, you still have your organization, then. My regiment has
been stricken from the Army List and Mr. Carstair's company as well.
I say, old boy, if you don't mind my being curious, just how did you
keep your command away from those ghouls?"

"Until I am notified in writing and until my color bearer gives up our
standard, the Fourth Brigade still exists and I am still in command."

A monotonous kind of laughter issued for several seconds from
the subaltern's throat and then, while he still went through the
expression, ceased to make any sound.

"Quite amusing, no doubt," said the lieutenant.

"Don't be hard on the lad," said the major. "He came out four years
ago and he's seen every officer of his regiment killed. He brought in
his company nearly a year ago and he has not been out of this fortress
since nor has he had duty."

"And you?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"I've only been here a month," said Swinburne, "but it is pretty clear
to me now that all field officers are being eliminated from their
commands and that General Victor and that crackpot Smythe are thinking
of setting up some sort of dukedom or some such thing. I came in just
before all communication was cut off with London and so I got caught."

"I understand," said the lieutenant, "that twenty-one commands have
reported in. Am I to presume that the rest of the officers are being
similarly treated?"

"They were," said Swinburne.

"And where are they?"

"There are still thirty or forty organizations out so far as I know.
All but Carstair and myself have managed to get out of here and join
them, one way or another."

"And you are telling me that field officers deserted their outfits
here?"

"Not exactly. There were desertions of noncoms and a few men as well."

"Then the place has nothing but staff officers and very few field
noncoms."

"Yes."

The lieutenant smiled.

"I fail," said Major Swinburne, "to see anything funny in that."

"The confidence of these Tommy-come-afters astounds me," said the
lieutenant. "That is all."

"They have little to fear," said Major Swinburne. "Before they left
England they were vaccinated against soldier's sickness."

"What's this? There is a vaccine?"

"It was produced in very small quantities by culturing human blood. I
understand that only the governmental heads and the staffs have been
given it."

"Our natural immunity to it is low enough, Heaven knows," said
the lieutenant. "Well! So they can thump their tails at soldier's
sickness. No wonder they're still alive." And again he laughed quietly.

"You seem to be easily amused," said Carstair resentfully.

"I was thinking of those poor little weaklings walking through the mud
out there, not getting their tea on time and being knocked off left
and right by every sniper that comes along. The joke of it is, they've
been moles so long they think war and disease cleaned the country.
Why, a subaltern with twenty men could outmaneuver them and annihilate
them before breakfast."

"Not so easily. Some of them have been on field service in central
Germany," said Major Swinburne. "Do not underrate them. As I see
it, they intend to take over this entire district, only going south
to get into a region where there is food. Most of the still-extant
organizations, you see, have headed for the Balkans and the Near East.
I'm told we've quite a force in Africa. Some two thousand men. Nobody
knows, of course."

"You're saying they'll meet no opposition, then?" said the lieutenant.
"Why, any village leader could cope with these half-starved soldiers
and fizz-brain staff rabble."

"The soldiers will carry it through," said Swinburne. "The thousand
which have been on constant garrison duty here are also immune to
soldier's sickness by the process of natural selection."

"They'll have eighteen hundred men," said the lieutenant.

"And we'll have nothing but a lingering death from boredom," said
Carstair.

"Why didn't you chaps go with the officers?" asked the lieutenant.

Swinburne looked uneasily across at Carstair and then shrugged. "We
sound hopeless. We really aren't. My men, the whole hundred, depended
upon me to stick by them. His men, about twenty, have done the same.
We occasionally get a message through from our sergeant majors."

"And so you stick in the faint hope that you'll be given back your
command?"

"Yes," said Swinburne.

"They'll never be _given_ back," said the lieutenant.

"What do you mean?" said both men sharply, with uneasy glances at the
door. Hope had suddenly blazed in their faces.

The lieutenant went on about the task of cleaning his muddy boots.

       *       *       *       *       *

The barracks had originally been intended to accommodate a thousand
men and so there was ample room for two hundred and eight. But for
all that the place was damp and gloomy and, to soldiers who had begun
to depend upon mobility rather than barricade for protection, it was
too near from wall to wall and, compared with the sky, too close from
ceiling to floor.

A silence fell upon the Fourth Brigade as they went about preparing
their abiding place. For the first few minutes they feverishly
got things in order and then, that accomplished, they touched up
themselves. But more and more, as the hours passed, they glanced
inquiringly toward the door. Two or three times false word came that
the lieutenant had arrived and there was a scurry of activity to make
certain everything was all right. They supposed, naturally, that
General Victor would accompany the lieutenant upon this inspection
and, above all things, they did not want to disgrace their officer.

Bulger put dinner off and off until everyone was fairly starving,
for he did not want to have the place messed up with food and smoke.
Finally Pollard gave the word and Bulger's two scarecrows broke up
some desks and benches to build a fire under the air outlet. There
was another burst of activity to get supper through and cleared away
before the inspection should come. And then, once more, they relapsed
into waiting.

Little by little the tension died from them. They felt empty and
neglected. They did not even know the time, for they no longer had the
sky. A mild attack of claustrophobia was creeping over each of them.

In short, their morale was slipping. As long as they could remember,
they had had the lieutenant in sight or alarm distance, and now that
they did not know where he was, they felt nervous. What if anything
should happen? Of course they knew nothing could happen, but still--

"An enemy command over that ridge, sir. About three hundred and fifty
machine guns."

"Weasel! Scout the position. Pollard, make sure we can march in ten
minutes. Bulger, apportion those supplies. Carstone, are your guns in
condition? Good. Stand by."

"Sir, there's damn near a regiment in that town."

"Pollard! Stand ready to feint a front attack. Hanley! Prepare to
take cover on the right Tou-tou! Your outfit take cover on the left.
Carstone! Make ready an ambush. When Pollard sucks them out, roll up
their flanks, cut their retreat and give Carstone his chance."

Yes, what if something should happen?

What if something _had_ happened?

Gian went over his artillery again and wiped away some mythical dust
and gave his men seven brands of Hades if they slipped up again.

"What do you think, Gian?" said Tou-tou.

"How can I know what to think? These staff officers!"

"The sun's down. At least, those helios aren't working."

"He said he'd be back," said Gian.

"But he hasn't come back," said Tou-tou.

They wandered away from each other.

"Maybe he got sick all of a sudden," said Weasel. "Maybe he got sick
and we weren't there!"

"Maybe they fed him some poison," said Bulger. "They know nothin'
about food in a rat burrow like this!"

"Was he all right when you saw him last, Mawkey?" said Weasel for the
thirty-second time.

"Yes," said Mawkey. "He'll be along. He hasn't seen those other
officers for a long, long time and maybe he's sick of talking to
stupid rabbits like us."

"Sure, that's it," said Bulger.

But nobody believed it.

       *       *       *       *       *

There was another false alarm, and everybody eased down as soon as the
noncom was clearly seen in the door. Nobody knew him, but as he was a
sergeant major, Pollard received his greeting.

"I hear this is the Fourth Brigade," said the newcomer. "I'm Thomas
O'Thomas of the Tenth Regiment, Second Brigade, Third Division, Tenth
Army Corps." But when he said it he looked over his shoulder to see if
anyone was listening. "That's the old outfit, of course," he added.
"Major Swinburne commanding."

"Orace Pollard, at your service. Second in command of the Fourth
Brigade. Come in and have something."

"I _thought_ that was food I smelled."

"Right you are," said Pollard, leading his guest back to the square on
the floor which was Pollard's office.

Thomas O'Thomas didn't miss anything as he came down the barrack. He
saw haversack after haversack bulging with food and loot, belt after
belt full of ammunition. This outfit was wealthy!

"And Heaven blind me!" said O'Thomas. "Artillery!"

"Yes-s-s, indeed," said Gian.

"There are some guns around here but they're shot out until a crew
won't touch them. And these here weapons look like new."

Gian beamed happily and was greatly taken with Thomas O'Thomas.

Pollard seated his guest at the table and signaled to Bulger to have a
man bring some barley soup and bark tea and real flour bread. O'Thomas
could hardly believe his eyes and nose and, without apology, fell too
with voracity.

"Some more?" said Pollard. "There's plenty."

"Plenty?" said Thomas O'Thomas.

"A bigger dish, Bulger."

Thomas O'Thomas slurped avidly through that and a third and then,
scoffing off the tea with its liberal portion of beet sugar, felt that
the age of miracles had returned.

"How do you manage it?" said Thomas O'Thomas.

"It's the leftenant," said Pollard. "He thinks of rations and bullets
and the brigade, and nothin' else."

"Blind me! What an officer!"

"We picked this up in four days," said Pollard.

"Four--Aw, now, there ain't that much food in this whole bleeding
country, chum."

"There is. That's the kind of commanding officer we got."

"We bloody well starved in the Tenth Regiment. That's why we came back
here. But there ain't a thing to eat in this hole, let me tell you.
And since they relieved Major Swinburne of his command, we never get
nothing."

"They ... they _what_?" cried Pollard, half on his feet.

"Why, certainly. Every time a field officer comes back to this rabbit
warren, the staff takes away his troops and hands them over to some
simpering mamma's boy that'd run forty miles if he ever heard a rifle
cocked. And let me tell you, when you get your new officer you'll
find out all about etiquette--saluting and playing nurse--" He found,
suddenly, that he was surrounded by a group of tense faces belonging
to all the noncoms of the organization. "Oh, I say, you chaps. You
seem to be worked up!"

"What happened to your command officer?" said Pollard.

"Well, he was just relieved, that's all. We hated to lose him, because
he was a fine man. A wonderful field officer and we all liked him. But
what can we do? We haven't even been able to find out what happened to
him."

"You haven't--See here!" said Tou-tou. "You actually let them take him
away from you and never made a move to find him?"

"When we got it through our heads," said Thomas O'Thomas, "we were
already broken up into other outfits. Just like you'll be. Wait and
see. They'll spread you thin. That way there ain't no way you can give
trouble." He felt uneasy, as though they didn't approve of him quite.
"If you don't mind, now, I'll be going. I slid past the guard. Nobody
is supposed to come here yet, you know."

"You mean we're isolated?" said Pollard.

"Well, call it that. They don't want anybody to start any trouble, you
know." And so, bidding them farewell, Thomas O'Thomas left.

       *       *       *       *       *

Thomas O'Thomas' going was the signal for the whole room to begin
talking at once. Even the carriers, beasts of burden though they had
been made by him, became anxious for the safety of the lieutenant lest
they thereby receive a worse fate than having to eat well and work
hard.

Before they had even started to get this talked out, two more
high-ranking noncoms filtered in, on the alert for food. They were fed
and they were pumped thoroughly.

"Look, you chaps," said one. "There's no use getting worked up.
When the mutinies commenced they equipped all these barracks with
regurgitant gas. Calm down or you'll have it dumped on your heads."

Several more noncoms got through the guard and these added further
confirmation.

"Your command officer?" said one. "Why, if he was a field officer,
it's pretty plain what's happened to him. I'm from old Tin Can Jack's
Hellfire Highlanders and I know. Tin Can Jack couldn't get us back
three weeks ago and so he sloped."

"He ran away?" said the brigade, incredulous.

"And left you?" said Bulger.

"The whole blooming eighty nine of us. He had to save his life, didn't
he?"

"His life--" in horror.

"You ain't got any idea of these new staff officers," said the noncom
from the Hellfire Highlanders. "You see, when they killed the last
dictator in England and set up the B.C.P. it was General Victor what
turned his coat and handed over the London Garrison to the commies.
Him and all his officers. And when that was done, the B.C.P. had to do
something for him and they was scared of him, because a traitor once
may be a traitor twice and so they just shipped him over here with all
his blinking officers to remove General Bealfeather. So they aren't
nothing, these staff officers, but a lot of whipped cream and gold
braid and they're scared of the field officers--"

And so it went throughout the night. The stores of the Fourth Brigade
went rapidly down and their alarm went rapidly up. They paid good food
for information, despite the repeated warning, sotto voce, that they
wouldn't get such fare here in the garrison. They were too desperate
to care.

       *       *       *       *       *

And when morning came, finding them without sleep, they were at last
quiet. At least, Malcolm found them so.

"Atten_shun_!" barked a noncom they hadn't seen before.

Captain Malcolm came in. He was freshly shaved and laundered and he
carried a crop under his arm and wore gloves. He scowled when he saw
that very few had come to their feet. He turned and beckoned in a
picked squad of garrison soldiers. Sullenly, the Fourth Brigade stood
up.

Malcolm looked them over, not very complimentary to their condition,
or deportment, or weapons. Pollard followed him around more to keep
him from doing anything than to aid his inspection.

At last Captain Malcolm came to the center of the room. He felt that
he should make a speech.

"Soldiers," said Malcolm, "you are, of course, in very sorry shape."
From what the Fourth had seen of the garrison, they did not believe
it. "And your discipline, it is plain to see, has been very slack."
There was a mutter and Malcolm glanced around to see if the garrison
guard was handy and alert. "However, as soon as you are split up into
your new organizations and your ranks filled from theirs, we shall go
about improving you. As your commanding officer, I--"

"Beg pardon?" said Pollard.

Malcolm glanced back and was reassured by the garrison guard.
"Sergeant major, if you wish to see the orders"--gently sarcastic--"I
shall be glad to show them to you."

"The only orders we recognize," said the stolid Pollard, "are those
that come from the leftenant's mouth."

"Oh, now, see here, old man, I--"

"I said that and I'll stick by it. Call this mutiny or anything you
like, but you ain't going to do anything to our leftenant!"

Malcolm backed a pace and then stiffened in anger. "I care to call it
mutiny! Sergeant of the guard, arrest this man!"

"Touch him," said Tou-tou. "Just go ahead and touch him."

"And this man," said Malcolm, pointing to the burly Tou-tou.

"Sergeant of the guard," said Malcolm, "touch that alarm."

The clamor went screaming through the fortress.

"In a moment," said Malcolm, "we'll have an adequate force here. You
will be relieved of your food and given strict confinement. Sergeant
of the guard, take this brigade sergeant major in custody as well as
his thick-skulled friend."

The sergeant hesitated a moment. But he had heard troops coming on
the run and it looked like a cheap way to make face for himself. He
advanced and laid a hand on Pollard.

A revolver cracked and smoke writhed from Hanley's fist. The sergeant
caught at his guts and began to scream. The guard tried to get through
the door and away but pinned themselves there by their very anxiety.
Malcolm, white-faced, sought to claw through them.

A rifle blazed and the back of Malcolm's head came off, splattering
the others in the door. Malcolm's arms kept on beating and then froze
out straight.

Carstone's pneumatics began to pop like champagne corks and the blood
began to flow. The door, in thirty seconds, was barricaded by the
bodies of the garrison men.

Beyond, an officer leaped into view, not having heard the pneumatics
in the roar of sound. He jerked and his hands flew to his chest and
were full of holes.

Above them a powder began to flow out from automatic trips. The
regurgitant.

"Clear away!" howled Gian. And the doorway was clear of the Fourth
Brigade as far back as the artillery.

Three guns crashed as one, and half the wall went out, fragments
spattering through the corridor to knock back the garrison troops.

Hastily snatching their packs and trying not to breathe, the Fourth
Brigade leaped into the corridor. Gian whiplashed the carriers into
moving guns and caissons. Men were already beginning to gag and vomit.

       *       *       *       *       *

Pollard's bellow brought eyes to him. He sorely missed his lieutenant
but it was up to him and he had to act. He pointed up the least
defended incline and they sped along it. Behind them Carstone's
pneumatics were covering their retreat by hammering back the mob of
garrison soldiers.

When the last of Gian's artillery rumbled by, Carstone began to have
his machine guns shifted at intervals. By picking up the first of the
string in rotation and making it the last he was able to keep the
corridor behind them sprayed and still retreat.

A clang sounded up again and Pollard began to howl for Gian. The
artillery came up, the brigade hastily making room for it. A great
steel door had dropped into place across the corridor and powder was
again beginning to sift from above it.

"Stand back!" screamed Gian. "Ready guns three and four. Fire!"

The center of the door bulged out.

"Guns three and four reload! Fire!"

The bulge increased. The Brigade was retching. Behind them the
pneumatics sputtered and hissed, interspersed at intervals with the
coughing clatter of the Belgian alcohol gun.

"Guns three and four! _Fire!_" bawled Gian.

The door collapsed. The half-deafened troops sped through it, some of
them hastily binding wounds received from the ricocheting splinters of
steel and stone.

Soon Pollard faltered in dismay. Quite evidently the corridor he had
chosen had only gone up long enough to void the particularly hard seam
of rock and then had been built downward. They were on their way into
the depths of the fortress!

Wildly he glared about for another passage and found none. He had
to go forward now. All the way through the place. Thank Heaven the
regurgitant effect had been slight and was wearing away. Oh, if the
leftenant were only here to tell them!

He sensed rather than heard or felt the machine gun which had hastily
been thrown on a barricade to bar their way. Before he came to the
turn he halted and piled up the men behind him. They were glad to stop
and breathe better air.

"There's a machine gun up there, Gian."

"Right. Gun one, forward. Load solid. Make way, will you, Pollard?"

Gian laid the gun himself with the care of an artist. He yanked the
lanyard and the roar was too great for them to hear the shot bounce
off the far end of the turn. There was a scream of agony from the
barricade around the curve.

"Weasel, mop up!" said Pollard.

Weasel and four men snaked forward. Twice their rifles crashed and
then there wasn't any more sound at the barricade. The Fourth Brigade
went forward.

The central offices were quite deserted save for one orderly who had
risked all to rummage among the general's effects for any possible
food cache. Pollard hurried into the offices and glanced about,
hoping to find a map of the place. But the grenade they had tossed
into the place first had ripped up the wall chart beyond recognition.
The remaining orderly, who had taken cover behind a desk, was hauled
forth. He clearly expected to have his throat cut.

"Soldier," said Bulger, sticking his bayonet into the orderly's ribs
and tickling him up a bit, "if you want to live, you'll lead us
straight as a bullet to our leftenant."

"Y-y-you are the Fourth Brigade?"

"Right."

"J-j-j-just f-f-f-follow me!"

They followed him. Evidently the garrison had had a full belly for
they were not again obstructed. They drew up and tried to straighten
their uniforms when they came to the indicated door.

Pollard knocked with his pistol butt.

The lieutenant opened it.

Pollard gave one of his very rare salutes, though he forgot to take
the gun out of his hand first. "Sergeant major Pollard, sir. Fourth
Brigade all present and accounted for. Will ... will you please take
command?"

It was very hard, just then, for the lieutenant to remember to keep
full control of his emotions.

       *       *       *       *       *

Burrowed like a rat with a phobia against hawks, General Victor and
his staff received fragments of news and acted accordingly. Their
first effort was to order out the garrison, en masse, to engulf and
put to death the leaders of the mutineers. Very confidently, then,
they huddled in the darkness, awaiting report of results. A full hour
passed before any orderly came down to them.

It seemed that the loyal garrison was perfectly willing but that the
field soldiers, while only half their number, were opposed.

General Victor frothed and spluttered and sent out orders again, even
sending a staff major along with them. Half an hour went by before the
staff major came back.

It seems that he had somehow blundered into the north barrack which
had housed the Fourth and there had found the corpse of Captain
Malcolm.

"Mutiny and murder!" howled Victor. "Get back up there and sweep them
into cells!"

"That is the point, sir," said the staff major. "The garrison soldiers
state they would be only too glad to do it but it seems, somehow, that
their rifles are missing."

"What's this? What's this? Missing! Incredible!"

"It would seem so, sir, but you must not forget that the field troops
are quartered with the garrison troops now."

And so, bit by bit, the staff pieced together the lieutenant's
"fiendish" plan and their own defeat.

General Victor, once he understood, no longer raved. He just sat and
stared at his boots in dumb dismay.

Smythe grew bitter, blaming everyone around him. "You should have
understood! Why, I myself heard Captain Malcolm state his annoyance at
the brigade's slow progress back. They attacked every possible source
of food supply. It's plain now. He's the devil incarnate!"

An orderly came down, the same that had found the lieutenant for
Pollard. He was happy to be momentarily free. "Sir, the compliments
of the lieutenant and would the general come up under a flag of truce
to discuss the terms?"

"Terms?" cried the officers. "For what?"

"Surrender, he says, sirs," apologized the orderly.

"Surrender! By all that ever _was_ holy!" said Smythe. "Tell him no!"

"He says he'd hate to have to come down and get you, gentlemen.
Begging your pardons."

"Come down--How perfectly ghastly!" Smythe grabbed the orderly by
the coat and shook him. "Does he think he can take his own general
headquarters? Does he?"

General Victor stood up wearily. "It appears that he has. I shall go
speak with him."

They protested, but Victor did not hear them. Unwillingly they filed
after him up through the fortress to the higher levels. It was with
great surprise that they found the troops all out of the ground.

       *       *       *       *       *

The rain had ceased for the time and small shafts of sunlight were
cutting along the slopes, flicking over the remains of many an attack
and sparkling in the water which clung to the bottoms of shell holes.
Nearly eighteen hundred men were out here, variously disposed upon the
flat expanse between the hills.

Victor's very large head turned this way and that, taking it all
in. He saw that a machine gun company was stationed in such a way
as to command the expanse and that riflemen were posted so as not
to interfere with the machine guns. It appeared very much as if the
garrison was about to be executed to a man.

The staff's eyes were burned by the light, to which they were not
accustomed. And their courage also burned very low, for they bethought
themselves of the possibilities of firing squads. Their consciences,
where field officers were concerned, were very, very bad.

Victor located the lieutenant seated upon a rock, surrounded by
several noncoms and two other officers. With misgivings he approached.

The lieutenant stood up and bowed, smiling.

"See here," said Smythe, beginning without preamble. "This is mutiny,
murder and desertion; a hellish plot!"

"A plot?" inquired the lieutenant innocently.

"You know very well what it is!" said Smythe. "You cannot deny it. You
stocked your men up with food and brought them here. You _knew_ what
effect that would have upon this garrison. You _knew_ that when you
ordered your men to revolt there would be no hand to oppose them. This
is a vile trick!"

"Perhaps, Colonel Smythe, perhaps. But you are wrong in saying I
ordered my men to revolt. That was not necessary, you know."

"Ah!" cried Smythe. "You admit it! You admit you came here on purpose
to avenge your friends."

"Vengeance," smiled the lieutenant, "was not part of my plan. However,
I might include it."

"How else," howled Smythe, "could it be?"

"We have very poor rifles, gentlemen. We had no rain cloaks, no sound
boots. We had no baggage carts, no new-style helmets. We were short on
good ammunition and only long on strategy. As soon as we have what we
want we shall leave you to your regrets."

General Victor thrust Smythe aside. "According to international law,
sir, you are a brigand."

"If we must have law," said the lieutenant courteously, "then let it
be military law, by which you are a fool. Now please stand aside while
we get on with our business."

Swinburne, Carstair, Pollard, Tou-tou and Thomas O'Thomas all
looked wonderingly at the lieutenant. They had had no inkling of
this as a deliberate scheme, but now they saw it clearly. They saw
it in terms of numbers and guns, and gasped at the realization
that the lieutenant had captured the only existing fortress in this
countryside, garrisoned by sixteen hundred men, with not the loss of
one of his own command. Their faces softened into gentle worship as
they gazed upon their officer.

It took half the day to complete the business. What with every
garrison soldier clamoring to be included in the lieutenant's ranks
and therefore turning out every possible hiding place for the hoarded
stores, the detail became enormous.

The lieutenant worked on. He took no soldier who had not had at
least three years in the lines with a combat division. He took no
soldier who thought there should be anything even faintly resembling
a soldiers' council. And he did not even take all the field troops,
for many of these were not fit for active service and would only have
proved a burden.

       *       *       *       *       *

At dawn the following day, the organizations were made up. Five
hundred and fifty troops were assigned to two sections, with the cream
of the Fourth Brigade marshaled into a body of scouts under the direct
control of the lieutenant. By order, the whole was to remain the
Fourth Brigade, with two regiments and one artillery unit.

Drawn up on the expanse before the hill, the soldiers stood rigidly
under the lieutenant's inspection, only a fortress guard under Pollard
being absent from the ranks. The Union Jack was absent and in its
place was the standard of the Fourth Brigade.

The lieutenant was very thorough. Each man had a good pair of
boots, a rainproof cape, a visored helmet, a semiautomatic rifle, a
breastplate, three bandoleers of ammunition, a canteen, a bayonet,
a sharp-sided spade, six grenades, a good overcoat, two uniforms of
regulation British slate blue, and an adequate haversack. The baggage
carts were brimming with spare ammunition and condensed food. The
artillery unit now had eight pieces and sixty non-combatants to draw
them.

The lieutenant finished his inspection.

"Major Swinburne, is the First Regiment ready to march?"

"Yes, sir."

"Ensign Carstair, is the Second Regiment ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"Orderly, recall Pollard and inform him he is to bring up the rear
guard. Weasel, lead off with the vanguard. _Brigade! By squads, left!
March!_"

In the ranks of the Hellfire Highlanders a bagpipe began to scream
and wail, accompanied by three drums. Englishman, Scotsman, Irishman,
Australian, Canadian, Frenchman, Finn, Pole, Belgian, Italian, Dane,
Spaniard, Moor and Turk, stepped out to the barbaric strain, the
standard of the Fourth Brigade streaming out in the fore.

General Victor stood downcast upon the lip of the fortress, watching
the command snake over a ridge and out of sight until the bagpipes,
finally, had vanished into the distance.

"I was wrong," said General Victor. "There's reason, then, why a field
officer should be treated well. Smythe, I would to Heaven we had kept
him under our command."

"There's no use talking about it now," said Smythe bitterly. "That
outfit is headed for England!"

"You ... you think so?" said the startled Victor.

"I'm certain. Come, we owe it to London to tell them of this revolt
and of the man that led it. This debt will yet be paid."




                              CHAPTER VI


Near the middle of November, just as dawn eased across the horizon,
a strange and hostile fleet crept along the dreary fen lands from
seaward toward Gravesend.

There were nearly fifty boats in all, boats which had nothing in
common but their rigs. Culled by fishermen from the harbors of the
north coast of France, the vessels were ex-anything but fishermen.
Submarine chasers, admirals' barges, lifeboats, lighters, torpedo
boats, motor-sailers and, in short, almost anything which would float
and could be handled by two or three men. Their superstructures
bore no resemblance to the original architectural designs. Without
exception one or two masts rose up from the deck of each to which was
affixed a patchwork of rags and booms to make up the crudest kind of
sails.

Once these vessels had had a very warlike aspect and though, for
years, this had been missing in favor of fishing, once again there was
some semblance to the battle boats they had been. They were crudely
armored along the gunwales with barricades of sandbags and scrap plate
and even boards. On nine of them artillery was mounted behind adequate
shields and eight of them were carrying machine guns of widely
different types.

It was a very quiet flotilla, quietly slipping through the thick and
swirling mists like a number of spirits from the deep come to land to
beg back their lives.

Leadsmen chanted softly as they found their deeps and marks, and
impressed French sailors sat glumly at their tillers, depending wholly
on the lead and lookout for their course, so impenetrable was the fog,
so treacherous the shoals.

Soldiers lounged behind the barricades, finishing a light breakfast
and silent now that an action might begin soon. They did not think
much about it, for they had gotten out of that habit in early youth.
It was enough to know that there was much food in the hold and that
the Lieutenant was up there in the lead, watching out for anything
which might develop and plotting the downfall of England.

Fifteen English fishermen had been picked up and their vessel and
catch commandeered. These were piloting with all their faculties, for
they had no liking for these handy guns and the faces of such hardened
veterans. At first they had been very reluctant and one vessel had
grounded on a bar. Now that there were but fourteen of them, they
did their work very well. Mawkey was the only one who could keep the
shore in sight. To all others it was wholly invisible save at rare
instances. Indeed there was not much shore to see, only flat, endless
swamps, different from the water only in that they did not move with
the inshore breeze.

Abreast of the leading vessel were two others, forming a slight
triangle. The flanking pair were motor-sailers, some forty feet
in length and very lightly burdened to have a shallower draft. In
these, to port and starboard of the lead respectively, were Carstair
and Swinburne. In the admiral's barge which felt the way was the
Lieutenant.

"Bottom at two and a half fathoms," said the leadsman. "Bottom at two.
Bottom at three. Bottom at three and a half fathoms."

The English fisherman turned frightened eyes to the Lieutenant. "We're
in the river proper now."

"Keep on to Gravesend," said the Lieutenant.

       *       *       *       *       *

On crept the flotilla, feeling through fog so dense that even Mawkey
could no longer find the shore. But the leads told their story to the
fishermen. They were coming in with the tide, aided by a very slight
breeze from the sea which had come with dawn. There was, as yet, no
indication that the fog would lift at all, but the Lieutenant had his
hopes.

It seemed so strange to be coming back. It was as though he had never
been here at all, so filled his mind had become with five years of
war, packed upon eighteen years of it. He recalled very little of the
Thames, except that, in this time of year, the fog sometimes lifted
for a little while in midmorning and then settled back for the entire
day, and that these very marshes were the rising places of that fog.
If he had calculated aright, they would be sighted only when they
reached Gravesend.

If the gods of battle were kind--

They had nearly run down a great cliff which loomed high above them in
the fog. Panic gripped the English pilots and orders ripped across the
fleet. In a moment the cliff was paling and they were going around it.

A great battleship was here, solidly held up by mud. It had burned
to the water and its plates were twisted and gaping. The turrets
were all awry and half the guns had been blown away. The masts were
trailing overside, eaten by rust and still clutched by the tattered
dead. This had happened long ago and the name of the vessel was not
decipherable.

In three hours the fog began to lift a little and the shores became
dim outlines which gradually took form. They had timed their arrival
well. Gravesend was to port, Tilbury to starboard.

There was not much left of Gravesend--a few walls, a lonely stack, the
bones of lighters upon the mud, a few vessels sunken at their wharves.
The Royal Terrace Pier was a collection of stumps in the water. The
ripraps which had held back the banks had given way here and there,
spilling abandoned buildings into the river. The chalk hills which
sloped up and away were denuded of trees and buildings alike, the
whole having been consumed by fire. Not even a shrimp fisherman was
here.

The flotilla wore about and approached Tilbury. And as they neared
they found that the Tilbury Docks were not in better condition. A
few stones marked where Tilbury Fort had stood. Only an ancient
blockhouse, dating almost from Roman times, was whole and sound. Of
the great deep-sea docks there was very little sign. Of the great
petrol storage tanks there was nothing but a scorched area, which
accounted for the burning of both the north- and south-bank cities,
just as the absence of the government powder magazines higher up
accounted for the collapse of the higher walls. This was all old to
the Lieutenant, but it seemed as if he saw it for the first time. But
there was one thing new. The river was cleaner than he remembered it
and the fog less yellow.

As he had hoped, they were sighted from the shore, for a man went
racing along the dike toward the blockhouse. And, a moment later,
several other men came streaming forth to see for themselves.

The flotilla picked its way among the bars which had formed from the
lack of dredging and the breaking, here and there, of the dike. Two
large freighters were decaying, held fast by the rising bars, unable
to make the sea as they had made the shore. But they were too far out
for the Lieutenant's purpose.

Some distance west of the blockhouse he brought the flotilla to
anchor, parallel with the shore and a hundred yards or so out from the
nearest tide flat. The sulphury odor of tidewater grass was strong in
their nostrils.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Lieutenant examined the beach. It afforded very slight cover
anywhere within rifleshot save for the remains of a few boats. And as
the only sound ones of these appeared to be wrecked destroyers out of
some attacking fleet, it was highly unlikely they would be out of the
water at high tide. The place suited him.

The anchor lines of the small vessels stretched out taut with the
tidal current, broadside to the beach. They were perfectly quiet.

Before long a considerable force came floundering along the partially
inundated marsh. The Lieutenant estimated them as numbering around six
hundred. For the moment he was made to wonder, for it did not seem
likely that such a number would be kept at Tilbury.

The tide still exposed a long bar and down this came a commander with
three staff officers and a twenty-man guard. The commander halted with
arms akimbo, the faint wind in his cape, staring at the leading boat.

"Where from?" he bellowed.

"France!" replied the Lieutenant. "The Fourth Brigade coming home!"

There followed a brisk consultation and then the commander hailed
the fleet again. "Turn back! We have orders to annihilate you if you
attempt to land."

Swinburne and Carstair, in their vessels close by the Lieutenant's,
were shocked to see a happy grin suffuse their leader's face. "For
what reason?"

"We have been advised," bawled the commander, "by General Victor's
headquarters that you have mutinied. We want nothing to do with
Continental soldiers! Turn back or we'll fire upon you."

[Illustration: "_We want nothing to do with Continental soldiers! Turn
back or we'll fire upon you._"]

"Carstone!" shouted the Lieutenant. "Kill me those officers!"

Carstone, in the fourth boat, bawled an order to his gunners with the
range.

Instantly three machine guns began to spit and cough. The tide flat
was churned by ripping slugs. The shore officers had whirled and raced
madly toward their troops, but before they had gone twenty yards they
were hammered down and sent rolling. In less than thirty seconds there
was nothing alive on the spit.

"Cease firing!" said the Lieutenant.

Higher up the gathered troops, seeing the dead bodies of their
leaders, leaped into activity, scooping out fox holes and throwing
themselves down to begin a hysterical fire upon the ships. But they
could see no targets behind those barricaded gunwales, and though the
water frothed and steel clanged with the fury of the fusillade, little
harm was done and no fire came from the vessels.

There was a lull. Messengers could be seen dashing away across the
marshes to the west, obviously heading for London with a plea for
reinforcements. And still no fire came from the fleet. The boats lay
in the hazy sunlight, apparently asleep.

Both Swinburne and Carstair were aghast at the wanton execution of the
shore officers, not because men had died, but because of the result
which was inevitable. Every man available, every gun which could be
fired would be rushed to this place to wipe them out of existence.
Such a maneuver would outnumber them and make it quite impossible to
effect a landing. For once it was obvious that the Lieutenant's luck
was not holding, or else that his hopes of being received peaceably
had gone glimmering with the replacement of rage for wisdom.

The fire from shore slackened for lack of targets and had almost
ceased when the Lieutenant gave another order: "One rifleman each
vessel snipe the shore."

The fire was deadly, for cover on the beach was sparse. Madly the
troops there strove to deepen their fox holes, many dying before they
could achieve it. Further messengers went snaking off through the
marsh grass toward London.

The result was a wild increase in firing from shore. As soon as it
became dangerous to return it from the boats, another order was passed:

"Cease firing."

Two men had been wounded in the arms out of the Fourth Brigade. At
least thirty-five were casualties ashore.

       *       *       *       *       *

The mist began to settle slowly down into fog once more as the morning
waned. But thick as it got, each time the firing ashore slackened, the
Lieutenant aggravated it anew. Hits were few under such conditions for
men were visible only when they moved on shore and the boats were only
darkly furled sails connected by a shadow with the water.

The corpses on the sand bar were carried upriver as the tide rose and,
some hours later, came bobbing back to trail along the hulls and fade
into the fog toward the sea.

The day went slowly. Protected by the steel hulls or the barricaded
decks, the Fourth Brigade was served hot meals on time, was relieved
in orderly fashion, and told themselves and each other that this was
the real way to conduct a war.

Night came. A few alarms clove the fog. A few random shots howled away
from the steel plates. The Fourth Brigade changed its watches and
speculated on how the Lieutenant might possibly crack this landing
problem.

Dawn came, lighting up the fog but doing little for visibility. The
morning wore on and the fog began to lift.

When they could again see the shore, they found that the troops there
had dug themselves a deep trench which, though it certainly must be
half full of water, afforded good protection from the boats. The
routine of the former day went on, with the boats prompting the shore
fire each time the latter showed signs of slackening. Three more
casualties were suffered in the fleet, one of them fatal by reason of
a Frenchman taking off his helmet to see the dent a bullet had placed
in it.

There seemed to be a considerable augmentation of forces on the beach,
but, at the same time, there seemed to be less enthusiasm in the
shooting. The brigade, war-wise, read this as a very bad sign.

"Mawkey," said the Lieutenant when the clear period was thickening
into a London special, "keep your eye peeled upriver. They may try to
float troops down on us with the ebb of this tide."

Other lookouts were posted and the routine of the day settled down to
chance shooting and hot meals and speculation. The tide had ceased to
make about eleven. The Lieutenant went below, or at least into the
after cockpit, and played solitaire with a greasy pack of cards.

Swinburne had his boat hauled astern the admiral's barge and came
aboard, and Carstair, crossing Swinburne's craft, also came aboard.

They sat down and watched the Lieutenant play, occasionally indicating
something they thought he might miss in building on his aces.

"Lieutenant," said Swinburne at last, "we have every confidence in
you. Your feats of getting these boats and the supplies for them, your
additions to our artillery all speak for themselves. But we believe
that if we are to land we should do it on the opposite bank, where
there is no force."

"Every confidence?" smiled the Lieutenant. "Captain Swinburne, I may
miss a trick or two in solitaire, but I never miss a trick in battle.
I at least hope I don't. Let them collect their forces and alarm the
countryside. This is one of those rare moments when we can relax. Our
men have food and are happy. We have good, dry beds. We have just
finished a most harrowing sea voyage in cockleshells. Let us rest."

"But to fight such a tremendous force as will collect--" began
Carstair.

"We are good soldiers," said the Lieutenant. "I haven't heard you howl
about odds yet, Carstair."

Swinburne and Carstair were uncomfortable. They took their leave and
returned to their boats.

       *       *       *       *       *

About two thirty, Mawkey set up a clamor, pointing excitedly upstream.
The Lieutenant came up and peered through the thickness. Presently he
could make out the hulls of boats drifting down upon them.

"Gian!" cried the Lieutenant through cupped hands. "Mortars on those
vessels and don't miss!"

Gian's men were already standing by their guns on the various
gunboats. Gian barked the range and elevation and fuse set.
Artillerymen dropped their bombs into the muzzles of the mortars.

The drifting vessels were almost upon them. A furious fire lashed
out from both sides and the fog was ripped by machine-gun slugs and
grenades.

The mortar fire was deadly, bursting three or four feet off the packed
decks of the attacking vessels and clearing the crews away from the
small-bore rapid-fires before a brigade boat was even hulled.

Crouched behind their barricades, brigade grenadiers looped accurate
incendiary grenades into the drifting craft when they were scarcely
more than visible. Flame geysered among the ranks of the attackers.
The fog was blasted again and again by the mortars. Shrapnel and solid
shot finished their task. Less than twenty shore troops boarded and
these were immediately killed. Against such experienced veterans they
indeed had but little chance.

Men struggled in the water, carried past the flotilla by the tide and
so out to sea.

The battle had lasted four minutes by the barge chronometer. The only
survivors of the attacking party were the eight who were hauled up
for questioning and those few who had managed to swim ashore. Brigade
casualties amounted to three killed and seven wounded.

The Lieutenant took a prisoner below for questioning, and the
man's nerves were so badly unstrung that he answered readily, if
disconnectedly.

"What kind of government, if any, do you have?" said the Lieutenant.

"The B.C.P.," replied the soldier.

"How long have these Communists been in power?"

"A year, two years, three years--You'll kill me when this is done?"

"Not if you answer properly. Who is the leader?"

"Comrade Hogarthy. But there are many other leaders. They quarrel. But
Comrade Hogarthy has the greatest power. Almost all the country is in
his control--or the army, I mean."

"How many men in your army?"

"Six thousand."

"And your headquarters?"

"The Tower of Freedom."

"What's that?"

"It was the Tower of London. Most of it is still standing."

"How much artillery do you have?"

"I ... I don't know. Some in the Tower of Freedom, I think. Some
three-inch. Hogarthy took what big guns were left and had them
destroyed, except for those he kept. There isn't much ammunition."

"Can you swim?"

"Sir? I mean, yes."

"Then swim ashore with the message that if Hogarthy will surrender
unconditionally to me I won't attack his army there on shore. Repeat
that."

The soldier repeated it.

"Now swim," said the Lieutenant.

The soldier, not believing he was still alive, hauled off his crude
shoes and ill-fitting jacket with its red tabs and dived over the side
to presently vanish in the fog.

"Mawkey."

"Yessir."

"That calls for a drink."

"Yessir."

And the Lieutenant, smiling happily, leaned back upon the admiral's
cushions and shuffled his cards.




                              CHAPTER VII


Shortly before dawn, Weasel and Bulger pulled their dripping selves
over the gunwale of the admiral's barge and sent word of their arrival
to the Lieutenant. He was seated in the stern cockpit with a map of
the Thames spread out upon his knees, checking over river obstructions
with an English fisherman.

The Lieutenant looked up and raised the candle a trifle. He sent the
fisherman away and scanned the pair amusedly. "I never thought," he
said, "that I would live to see the day when Bulger bathed, but now I
can die content."

Bulger, with brown river water forming a pool about his feet as it
cascaded over his protruding stomach and dropped, grinned happily to
be noticed so. He hefted a bag made out of a rubber poncho.

"We thought maybe the Lieutenant would want to know what the shore
over there looked like," said Weasel, "but this pelican wouldn't be
content unless he brought back half their rations."

"I wondered whether you could stand the temptation," said the
Lieutenant. "I sent Hanley ashore about two hours ago to reconnoiter,
but he hasn't returned."

"Then we'll be first with the news," said Weasel. "Sir, they got about
four thousand men over there now and they've brought up six small
field pieces, maybe six pounders, and they've made a barricade out
of one of them destroyers when the tide was low last night. They're
gettin' ready for a party and we're the guests of honor."

"Any estimate of their ammunition?"

"Sure," said Bulger. "There ain't any limit."

"What?"

"It's this way," said Weasel. "Y'see, they evidently run out of shells
and so they got the breeches of these guns sealed. They load them
from the muzzle with a rammer, usin' plenty of black powder and some
fuzzy-lookin' stuff for wadding. Then they put chunks of this and that
in the guns and they got artillery. I figure maybe they got bigger
stuff up the river that they use the same way. Remember them guns that
used to be park ornaments? Them didn't have no breech you could open?
Well, I figure maybe they're usin' those the same way. Damnedest way
to use a gun I ever heard of."

"Muzzle-loaders," said the Lieutenant thoughtfully. "Weasel, I'm
afraid we've got some work cut out here. Look." He took a pencil
and drew a picture of an old demi-cannon, remembered from military
history. "This is the touchhole. They put a length of fuse in it and
light it and it goes through and touches off the powder. Then they
stop the vent when the gun goes off. They've probably bored holes in
their modern artillery so that they can touch it off in this fashion."

"But why do they do that?" complained Bulger.

"Because the rifling in those guns must be worn out and because it
takes lots of machinery to make shells. And they're using black powder
because any cadet could make it out of the materials at hand. This is
very serious. Those things could blow us out of the water."

"They must have had an awful time getting that stuff across the
marshes there," said Weasel. "The dike is gone in lots of places and
it's just like a sea in there."

"Well, look," said the Lieutenant. "The way you put a cannon like this
out of commission is to drive a spike into the touchhole."

"Yeah?" said Weasel excitedly. "Hell, sir, we can do that before it
gets light. Come on, Bulger--"

"Slowly," said the Lieutenant. "We aren't going to do anything like
that for yet a while. Let them have their guns. What kind of troops
are there ashore?"

"Pretty awful," said Bulger. "But at eight to one they can afford to
be. They evidently hauled every farmer around here down and put a
rifle in his hands."

"Then these aren't Hogarthy's regulars from London," said the
Lieutenant.

"They don't look like any regulars I ever saw," said Weasel.

"Well--we'll just have to wait," said the Lieutenant.

"Huh?" said Bulger. "You mean you're too proud to fight this rabble.
Why, we could knock them kicking if we make a night attack. But if we
wait for them regulars, if they exist--"

"Thank you, Bulger."

"Aw, I didn't mean nothin', sir. You know your business and if you say
fly to the moon, we'll fly to the moon, sir. You know that."

"The greater the force," said the Lieutenant, "the greater the odds,
the greater the victory." He smiled at them. "Now get back to your
boats."

Bulger opened the pack and laid some buns on the Lieutenant's table,
along with some slices of ham. Hurriedly, then, they got out.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Lieutenant stepped to the deck and watched them over. It was
plain to him that the tide was flooding, the way they struggled to
breast it. He eyed his fleet, but all he could see were the vessels of
Swinburne and Carstair, the first rather plainly, the second very dim.
What fog this autumn brought!

"Pollard," he said.

Pollard came tumbling up from the forward cockpit. "Sir?"

"Pass the order that the flotilla is to move two miles up the river
and anchor there. No noise. Just drift with the tide and steer with
sweeps."

Hanley came up over the barricade along the gunwale like some monster
out of the deep. He was very excited. "Sir, they've got--"

"Guns," said the Lieutenant. "Six of them. Give me your report later,
but right now slip below and get dry."

Hanley blinked and then glanced distrustfully ashore. But nothing
could be seen but fog. Mystified, he slid into the forward cockpit.

Quietly the flotilla got under way, carried by the flooding tide.
As quietly they anchored two miles upstream. And when the morning
clear period came and the shore gunners were about to blow a fleet
to splinters, the fleet was no longer there. Officers fumed and
raved until a runner came sprinting up with the information that the
flotilla was anchored again two miles upriver. Instantly order was
regained. Men unblocked the field pieces and loaded baggage upon their
backs and slogged west. They met no opposition from the fleet and they
supposed it to be low on ammunition. That it had stopped was almost
certain proof that it had chosen another place for the battle.

The camp had been only partly moved when another maneuver occurred
to worry them. Four vessels detached themselves from the fleet and
sailed away, evidently headed across the river. The fog had closed
before the field pieces could be brought into action. But they had
been set up and now, without warning, shells began to thunder out from
the flotilla and tear into the batteries, even though the latter were
wholly invisible.

Gian stayed behind while the fleet poled itself two more miles
upstream, and then Gian, tired of firing at targets he could only hope
he was hitting, also had his gunboats moved, bringing up the rear
against the set of the water.

About one the sound of firing was heard far across the stream.
Instantly the camp was again in turmoil. Word was swiftly sent to head
off any troops which might be on their way down and redirect them over
the river to cover the opposite bank.

But, about two, the firing ceased. The four vessels which had been
detached for water came back to report a successful landing which had
been wholly unresisted, but that their scouts, about three thirty,
had heard boats crossing upstream and had supposed that troops were
being landed on the other bank. The Lieutenant ordered the water to be
distributed, a fifty-gallon drum to each three vessels, and sat down
to calmly enjoy a cup of tea.

Not until the following predawn did he have another report on the
shore troops. Weasel, strictly ordered not to touch the shore
artillery if any of it had survived Gian's bombardment, brought the
news that another complete army had arrived, bringing with it even
more field pieces. There were now, he said, about eight thousand men
swarming on both banks.

The Lieutenant gave his orders. There was a little wind, nominally
from the northeast but turned east by the river channel. It was
just enough to carry the fog of marshes continually up to London.
The flotilla made no effort, today, to be quiet. Booms creaked and
canvas slatted and sweeps groaned. In the foggy dark, they offered
no targets, though the shore troops began to light up the world
before the sun with a wild fanfare of shooting. They had gotten their
batteries moved again and now the air shrieked as slugs and rocks and
pieces of pipe sought blindly for a mark. A mosquito boat was hit and
sunk without casualty beyond its ammunition and food, for the crew
grabbed hard to the next boat in line. A sailor lucklessly stopped a
chunk of boiler plate which cut him half in two.

The fire was not returned. Already the flotilla was drawing away into
the channel and driving west toward Woolwich at an average speed of
four knots over the ground.

Leadsmen chanted loudly. Soldiers talked from boat to boat. And
occasionally the Lieutenant passed the word to various craft to fire a
few shots in the direction of either bank. It was a very noisy passage.

When the clear period came they found they had overshot Woolwich.
Not that there was much of value there, for the arsenal, in blowing
up long ago had taken half the town with it. Shooters Hill was far
behind. But there was evidence of a battery on the docks with new
works, and the Lieutenant had Gian throw a few mortars back at it for
luck.

The wind strengthened, which was fortunate, for the tide was nearly at
flood, and the fleet jibed around the great horseshoe bend, passing
hard by the Isle of Dogs. Navigation was difficult here, for the
Greenwich Hospital had been blown down so thoroughly that great chunks
of masonry had aided in the building of shallow bars.

Two shore batteries, constructed amid the ruins of the West India
Docks to one side and the Surrey Commercial Docks on the other. But,
having seen them from afar, Gian silenced them before the flotilla was
in range of the shore guns, and all that was received in passing came
from rifles.

From here to Greenwich the going was swift despite the turned tide,
for the wind was on the quarter and the flotilla sped along at six
knots over the water.

       *       *       *       *       *

The fog had dropped heavily again when they turned at Greenwich to
go in a northerly direction toward London. The wind had also dropped
and the haul up was slow so that it was very late when they at last
dropped anchor in the Limehouse Pool.

They did not announce their anchorage with any sound whatever, but
quietly went about supper, wondering what the Lieutenant would do
next. It was, however, rather plain that he meant to make an attack
upon the Tower either tonight or at dawn.

At nine that night, the Lieutenant detached the First Regiment's
Second Company under Swinburne's direction and sent them in five
vessels to land in the Causeway. They had orders to construct a
barricade in a likely place, to march west and make contact with the
Tower and then retreat full speed to the barricade where Carstone
would cover their embarking, after which they, in the boats, were to
cover Carstone's departure.

The Lieutenant sat in the after cockpit and played solitaire. From
time to time he lifted his head and listened, but as yet no firing
had begun. He knew that Limehouse was a mass of rubble, having burned
eighteen years ago, nine years ago and seven years ago, after each
rebuilding. After the third time, it had been abandoned. The going
would not be good and he did not expect the regiment back before one
or two in the morning. He dozed through his games and waited.

Sharp firing suddenly broke out upriver. Knowing that it would be
wholly impossible to see anything in this fog and dark, the Lieutenant
dealt himself another hand. The firing slackened, picked up and then
settled down to an even exchange. A boat grated against the admiral's
barge.

Mawkey thrust his head into the cockpit. "Weasel is here to see you,
sir."

"Bring him down."

Weasel was very well spent. Up on deck two or three of his soldiers
could be heard examining their blisters in low tones.

"Where have you been?"

"You know what you said, sir, about them cannon?"

"Yes."

"Well, you told me I could scout the shore if I wanted."

"Yes?"

"I hope you won't get sore, sir, but I come on a battery of them
things and I spiked them."

"Where?"

"Just about the place where Big Ben used to be, sir."

"You've been all the way up there?"

"Yessir, and it was an awful hard row."

"What's London look like?"

"It's all inside the Old Roman Wall, sir, just like I seen it last.
They built it up quite a bit in there. Must be thirty or forty
thousand people in the place, mostly living on top of the ground now."

"Carry on, Weasel."

The Lieutenant started to deal another hand when Hanley was ushered
down. His hands were also raw from pulling at sweeps, for he had been
dropped off with another soldier and a fisherman at Greenwich and the
row had been long.

"I come to report, sir."

"Anything downriver now?"

"They must have sent a bunch of boats and soldiers down to catch us
because I passed them downriver about three hours ago. Missed us in
the dark, I guess. I had an awful time finding you, even with those
orders you gave the fisherman."

"What else?"

"About five hundred men were heading east through Greenwich. I made
contact with them. It was easy to do because they've been scraped up
and hardly knew each other. I also seen that main body's vanguard.
They were all splattered with mud and lather and about wore out, but
they were heading up to London and I guess the main body is right
behind them, following the river. They'll be up here by tomorrow
morning, guns and all."

"Very good, Hanley. Carry on."

The Lieutenant thoughtfully shuffled his deck. Time was dragging and
he leaned back to catch forty winks, knowing he would awaken as soon
as the tone of the firing changed.

He did. Carstone's machine guns started up about twelve thirty and
continued for fifteen minutes in short, careful bursts. Then, one by
one, the guns stopped, the shooting taken up by rifles. After a little
the rifles faded out and the night was quiet.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Lieutenant came on deck and ordered Pollard to call out to the
returning boats, giving them an accurate bearing.

Presently Swinburne, with his empty sleeve ripped, his face dark with
powder and dirt, and his one eye blazing with battle, came aboard.

"We brought them all the way back to Limehouse, Lieutenant. And we
left them jumping up and down and swearing purple."

"Casualties?"

"We suffered three dead and nine wounded, two of them seriously. All
officers returned safely." He took the glass Mawkey was handing him
and drained it thankfully. "We must have cut them up pretty badly,
though there was nothing to shoot at but rifle fire and we used
pneumatics as much as we could. Whatever it was for, it came off very
well."

"Very good, Swinburne. You'd better get back to your boat and see to
it. Pollard, check the redistribution of the troops and stand by to
weigh anchor in fifteen minutes."

"Yessir."

"We're bound upriver," he said to Swinburne.

"Then you're not going to attack the Tower?" said Swinburne. "They've
built it up again, but I think we could do it. If we'd thrown the
Second Regiment west of that place, we could have had it tonight when
we sucked the garrison out."

"Carry on, Swinburne. Orders, Pollard."

The Lieutenant went below and turned in, instantly asleep.




                             CHAPTER VIII


All that night the flotilla eased slowly upriver. The fore part was
spent in locating and skirting the remains of fallen bridges and
sunken vessels, with no slightest glimpse of the shore or sky to aid
them. A gunboat went so solidly aground that it had to be unloaded,
its mortar transferred and the craft fired. Behind them the blaze was
but a dull glow which turned the pea soup faintly red. Firing was
heard in that direction, interspersed by the occasional thunder of a
larger gun. But evidently the river in general and not the flotilla
was the target, for nothing came near.

With the morning came a heavy, cold rain which somewhat dispelled the
haze for all its wetness, and the brigade found itself far upriver
from London, in fact, approaching the half-tide lock just below
Richmond.

Soldiers swathed in their rainproofs looked questioningly at the
barrier. The tide was later here and it was just passing into the
second half of the flood. Along the foot-bridge of the lock, which was
in repair, a small force was gathering, evidently the garrison of some
nearby fortress. Others were dragging two field pieces down the slope
from the terrace, but these, as yet, were far off.

When the flotilla came to within two hundred yards of the lock,
both sides opened fire. But orders went swiftly back and the last
six boats, under the command of Tou-tou, eased in to the shore and
unloaded. Gian was impatient, but he knew his fire would damage the
lock.

Tou-tou wasted no time in his attack. He curved far out through the
heavy brush and drew up his line. The garrison immediately drew up
there, only to be raked from the flank by a merciless fire from
Carstone and two mortar shots from Gian. Tou-tou swept up and through
and, tossing bodies away from the runway, opened the lock and guarded
the flotilla through. Sergeant Chipper took twenty men and lanced up
the slope to capture the field pieces, which he destroyed.

Once through, the flotilla paused, anchoring in midstream, until
Tou-tou, under orders, mined and destroyed the lock. And even then
they did not go on, but lay at lazy anchor, watching downstream.

About four the vanguard of the shore forces put in an appearance about
half a mile downriver, word of which was hastily brought to the fleet.
But the Lieutenant was in no hurry. He waited until the vanguard was
within shelling range and then had Gian drop two mortars into them.
The vanguard hastily drew back. In half an hour the main body was
seen, skirting Terrace Hill as though to cut off the flotilla from the
upriver side. Two more mortars were dropped by way of promise and the
flotilla, taking advantage of the very strong wind which had sprung
up with the thickening of the rain, upped sail and continued west,
past Richmond, and around the S bend which led to Kingston.

The wind slacked down with the rain, and clouds began to scurry,
belly to earth. The low-pressure area was somewhere in their vicinity
and the wind they got now was very uncertain, constantly shifting.
Visibility thickened as the day faded. The rain stopped entirely at
dark and it seemed to the shore forces that the stage was set for
an ideal battle in their favor. They sent patrols up with the dusk
and these met a very strong fire. The shore troops then got their
artillery into position in the woods and scurried about, gaining the
ire of every farmer in the countryside for their destruction of fences
for barricades.

At seven o'clock the shore batteries opened up into the black and
churned the river expanse before Twickenham where the fleet had
anchored. They were very thorough about it, supplementing the guns
with machine-gun fire. A force, meanwhile, scoured the banks for a
mile both ways, getting everything that would float and then manning
barges and lighters and rowboats with all the weight they would take.

They were certain now that the fleet was short on ammunition for no
fire answered them and they knew that a force without many bullets
will wait until the last possible moment.

Valiantly they launched their attack upon the inky river. Twice or
thrice they fired on their own boats. They drifted with the current for
a little way and then combed back. They set up excited, angry yells.

The flotilla was gone!

It had not passed Teddington pound lock.

It had not made the shore.

They abandoned their leaky vessels in favor of firmer land and hastily
began to rake the countryside and shores for any sign of the Fourth
Brigade.

They found none.

       *       *       *       *       *

With sweeps and sails and current, but all in the heaviest of silence,
the flotilla sped through the night, downstream to London. Past hamlet
and bar, point and ruined castle they swept on their way.

And by four of the following morning, having negotiated wrecked
bridges and derelicts and spits, they dropped quiet anchors just off
the Tower but all the way across the pool. They were not lazy now, but
keyed to high pitch for the coming action.

The gunboats were disposed above and below the fortress, out of range
of the land batteries but within range for their own guns. Some forty
boatloads, then, hastily checking their equipment for the last time
and memorizing their duties, warped in to the shore and effected a
swift but silent landing amid the debris of buildings and wharves.

The Lieutenant, muffled in his cloak and helmet, crouched in the cover
of a pile of stone and waited. Three quarters of his forces, or three
hundred and sixty men, were silent in the rubble-strewn dark about him.

It lacked about an hour of dawn and, with the usual consistency of
London weather, a few stars were trying to shine in the murk. It would
be a reasonably clear day.

Presently, to the east of the Tower, firing began. Swinburne had
engaged the garrison as he had once before. And it was a startled
garrison which tumbled from their bunks to snatch rifles and form
inside the newly made east entrance. A sortie was made, driving the
attacker back. And the raiding party seemed to be just as afraid to
come to terms this time as it had the last.

The battle drew slowly away to the eastward, toward Limehouse.
Reinforcements went out to settle the business once and for all. And
when the garrison's sortie was nearly a mile from the Tower, its
officers were dismayed to hear artillery upon the river which, by its
sound, was certainly not their own, but good guns.

The Lieutenant crouched low. He could make out his gunboats now and
he knew that Gian had the range. Solid shot was blasting away at the
Middle Tower, the outermost rampart. The gate crumpled and, as though
Gian had counted its bolts and measured its thickness with exactness,
he wasted not one shot too many upon it. He transferred his fire to
the Byward Tower, firing so as to blast any gate which might be there.
Then he shifted two mortars and dropped a savage spray of shrapnel
into the Outer Ward.

Without waiting for Gian to finish the job, the Lieutenant leaped up
and waved his troops forward. They rushed through the Middle Tower
and across the damaged bridge. The gate of the Byward Tower needed a
grenade to finish the bursting of its lock and then they were in the
Outer Ward. Gian had already begun to drop shells into the Inner Ward,
having shelled the gate east of the Wakefield Tower until it could be
breached. A few shots were fired down from the Bloody Tower as the
troops rushed by, but as the defenders had to lean out to aim, they
were dropped before they had gotten more than two men.

The Lieutenant scrambled over the rubble at the gate and leaped down
into the Inner Ward. The mortars had cleared away here, and now all
that was left was the White Tower.

Just as bombs had failed to destroy it, Gian's artillery could make
but little dent upon this ancient Norman keep, for its walls were
fifteen feet thick. But there were doors and windows on those walls
and now grenadiers came up with their bags of grenades, exploding
one after another against the door. It gave ever so little under the
onslaught.

Soldiers were firing down from the tower now that Gian had stopped
shelling. Snipers in the Fourth began to take their toll of the
remaining defenders.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Lieutenant saw that they were balked. He ordered the snipers to
cover the slots and the bulk of his troops to withdraw to the Outer
Keep. Then, gathering up a heavy bag of grenades, he rushed to the
door, pulling the pin of one, and chucked the whole into a slight break
near the bottom. He swept around the side of the wall and pressed
himself against it.

In a moment the grim old courtyard was torn with the thunder of this
concerted explosion. The brigade yelled and dashed forward across the
pavement.

They were within the keep and dashing toward the upper floors when a
machine gun met them from a landing. Half a squad dropped. Grenadiers
came to the fore and succeeded in pitching up a grenade to silence the
gun.

Up swarmed the assault party. Each landing found a few defenders, but
these, too, were vanquished.

In twenty-three minutes of attack, according to Gian's chronometer,
the Tower of London had passed into the hands of the raiders.

But there was no Hogarthy. A shivering staff informed the Lieutenant
that Hogarthy had gone with the main garrison, up the river in pursuit
of the elusive gunboats.

But the Lieutenant was not disappointed. He liked it that way. And
when he had had a breather and a glass of ale from Hogarthy's special
stock, sitting the while in Hogarthy's chair of office in the frowning
old room, he began to issue his commands again.

Swinburne had stopped running when the firing had begun from the river
and had let the garrison run into a gantlet of fire which had brought
them to swift surrender. And, having worked so hard to take them, he
was astonished indeed when the Lieutenant ordered him to take them
outside the walls, to place but three men over them and thereby let
them escape.

It was done. And the soldiers fled toward Hogarthy's forces.

Meantime the boats were unloaded and the Fourth Brigade assigned to
barracks in the old towers. They were fed and allowed to rest, except
for those under Weasel, who had gone out to contact Hogarthy's
vanguard a mile or two from town, when Hogarthy appeared.

The Lieutenant drank another glass of Hogarthy's special ale and broke
out his pack of cards.

       *       *       *       *       *

What happened to Hogarthy is history. How he floundered eastward
through the mud, in haste to contact the invaders before they could
repair the gates and walls and so entrench themselves. How he camped
at dusk some three miles from Tower Hill, well aware that his troops,
fagged out from days of stumbling along the river bank, must have rest.

The sortie which sucked Hogarthy out of that camp before he could even
get his troops fed was led by Carstair, who battled back through the
dusk to Tower Hill with every evidence of panicked flight.

The place where the battle was fought was well chosen by the
Lieutenant, for it was flanked all around, at that time, with the
wreckage of great buildings while the center was reasonably clear. It
was into this that Gian dropped a murderous mortar fire and across
this that Carstone swept his guns. Those facts in themselves would
have accounted for Hogarthy's defeat.

But the main cause was weariness. Hogarthy's rabble had been whipped
by their own Father Thames, and when they came to battle they were so
exhausted that they cared not whether they stayed, or died, or fled.
When the Lieutenant closed upon them from the west, from the very
direction to which so many tried to flee, all fight was knocked out by
the mere sight of a solid barrier of rifle fire.

Hogarthy was dug out of a swamp two days later and dragged into the
Tower by an exuberant Bulger.

The town, however, had already paid its homage to the Lieutenant and
the countryside all about was anxiously sending food to make peace
with this fox of a conqueror.

"I've got Hogarthy below," said the excited Bulger. "All the people we
met said it was him!"

"Good," said the Lieutenant, glancing up from a pile of documents.
"Shoot him."

"Yessir," said Bulger, speeding away.




                              CHAPTER IX


For years the soldier government ran smoothly, holding sway over
England and Wales. A steady, calculated hand dealt adequately with the
redistribution of the land and rehabilitation of the towns, for what
war had failed to do, the Communists had done by way of wrecking any
semblance of social system.

There were seven hundred and fifty thousand people within the
Lieutenant's boundaries and, if fully half of these were under twenty
the restoration of central power was only made the easier by making
old forms not only obsolete but also unknown.

The government took its taxes in tenths of production and upon the
basis of stores held against emergency was able to issue a scrip
which was valued as being backed by food. Government police were
maintained by their posts and any political abuses were quickly
stopped because they could be quickly reported.

Most of the work was directed at the land, very little of it toward
the manufacturing beyond the clearing out of certain sites to improve
the appearance of the country. Youth was avid in its studies and
though most of the libraries had been burned by bombs and Commies,
there were still enough printed data to supply the working background
of a very elementary kind of civilization.

The first great problem which jolted the Lieutenant was the amazing
intricacy of industry. At first there was some talk of opening a
clothing factory, but this led to the necessity of repairing a
foundry, which meant that a smelter had to be run, which finally
ended, not in the field with flax, but in the mines with iron and
coal. It was given up. A few handicrafters had been able to set up
some hand looms which were fairly efficient, even though built out of
bedsteads and rifles and tractor parts. Three districts swiftly came
to be employed for clothing and blankets, and as the government took
its tenth and, in turn, made it possible for the weavers and tailors
to eat and keep warm, everyone was happy.

Of building stone there was no lack. But the forests, destroyed far
back by incendiary bombs along with the cities, furnished nothing but
scrub saplings. And so youth became clever with stone.

A treaty was early concluded with the man who styled himself King of
Scotland, for animals were to be had there but gunpowder and coal were
not. Hence, a rather interesting trade was begun by sea.

The Thames' influence was again felt upon England. Boats, of sorts,
were to be had in abundance and there, rigged out of old books on sail
and only ballasted by their ruined, starved engines, began to creep
up and down that waterway and even out and up the coast.

The happiness of a country is directly dependent upon the business
of that country. And here everyone had seven times more projects to
accomplish than he could ever hope to complete in his lifetime, and
there was the grand goal of making a destroyed country live again.
Everyone, therefore, was happy. And there was no worry whatever about
politics.

The Lieutenant sat in audience for four hours each day, his fatigue
cap on the back of his head, his elbows on his battered desk and his
chin cupped attentively in his hands. He seemed oblivious to the fact
that he was against a background used by half the kings of England.
He would listen to a young farmer's rambling account of how things
were going up in Norfolk without any indication of the fact that
agriculture bored him to the point of fainting. And he would sift out
the problems and solve them without much effort, and the farmer would
go away happy and content that the government, for once, was in the
hands of the grandest fellow alive.

To the Lieutenant would come a woman who claimed she had been hardly
used by the sergeant-major court of her district, in that the sergeant
major would not compel her husband to take her best friend also to
wife despite the fact that there was too much work for just one and
that her friend was not needed in her present home. The Lieutenant
would listen to the husband's protest that he doubted he could handle
two women when he could barely manage one's uncertainties. And the
Lieutenant, smiling, might say, like as not: "Snyder, I regret to say
the deed is done. You have just been married to a second wife. Make
a note of that, Mawkey." And Mawkey would grin and write it all in a
book, and the farmer, now that the thing was done, determined to be
cheerful about it if the Lieutenant thought it was right.

Only two things found the Lieutenant swift and savage in his action.
The reiteration by some person that the B.C.P. had assigned him
such and such or had decreed thus and so. Having discovered that the
B.C.P., like all such governments, had manhandled affairs for the
benefit of a few yes-men, the population was usually reduced by one
before the hour was out. The other was discourtesy to a soldier who
had served on the Continent.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the early part of his first winter, the Lieutenant had sent Bulger
and Weasel with a small command across the channel with written
invitations to all field officers to return speedily with their
commands. Bulger and Weasel had spent three months on the task,
traveling at lightning speed and shortening their work by making
every command contacted a party to the message's circulation. By the
following spring most of the B.E.F. had come back. A few, of course,
had founded their own spheres in Europe and would not give them up,
but these were very rare, for almost all the officers and men wished
to return home and hailed the Lieutenant as a savior for having
accomplished the feat.

Bringing many additional nationalities with them, the B.E.F.
returned. From Archangel, Syria, Spain, Poland, Estonia and Turkey,
all summer the detachments continued to arrive. They numbered, in all,
nearly seven thousand men and one hundred and ninety-four officers.

The process of elimination which had gone on for nearly thirty years
had been very harsh but very thorough. No man without knowledge of men
had lived. No officer unfit to command had continued to command. Death
had been the ultimate reward for foolishness in any direction. Thus
they were an iron crew, those officers, able to gauge any situation
by its true values and with neither attention nor patience for any
slightest attempts to swerve from the issue. The troops alone might
have been said to have suffered by the exodus from Europe. For they
were not overly clever at construction, schooled only in destruction,
and though nearly all of them were assimilated by the National
Police, saving those few kept about the officers as guards of honor,
the men were very morose for a while at the prospect of inaction.

Soon, however, the spirit of construction came to them and they saw
what had to be done and helped do it. In view of what the Lieutenant
had done at G.H.Q. and to the B.C.P., thus avenging all of them, they
were anxious to please him, the more so when they came to know him.
Ruthlessly they suppressed the brigandism which had arisen in the back
countries. Zealously they expedited commerce. And, which was a strange
paradox, they were utterly merciless with thieves.

The officers were given great grants of land for themselves and wide
districts to administer--and for this there were few enough of them.
They did not abuse their rights and powers because there was no
reason. Not ten followers could have been found in all the land for a
project which involved removing the Lieutenant. Hence, an aristocracy
was founded on the basis of skill and leadership. And it was very far
from a fascism, for money and military were not combined. There was
no money as such beyond the food currency. And making money for its
own sake has always been a thing which a real soldier finds hard to
understand. Additionally, there was no need for indirect and cunning
controls over the populace. The leaders were there walking among their
people, serving more than they were served. In such a way were the
first nobilities of antiquity founded.

The agricultural problems which arose from the infestation of the land
with insects had solved itself. Certain plants, like the few remaining
people, were impervious to the insects and only these were planted.
This had been started three or four years before the Lieutenant had
come and by now it was arriving at a goal of extinction of plant pests.

Thus, there was plenty of food and warmth and work for all, and the
country settled down into cheerful activity, forgetting its wounds and
its hates. For who, with a full body, can talk earnestly of revolt and
sedition? Hogarthy's corpse had been borne on the tide to the sea. The
Continent was licking its wounds and wanted only to be left alone. The
King of Scotland was quick to send gifts when Hanley had taken the
surviving soldier Scots home with their tales of the Lieutenant.

       *       *       *       *       *

For years affairs progressed in even tenor and then, one day, a boat
was reported off Sheerness by the government at Blinker Towers.

The Lieutenant was in audience with a major from up Hereford way and
was so deeply engrossed that he did not immediately hear what Weasel
said. Weasel, at the risk of being insistent, repeated it and popped
his heels together to demand attention.

"Sir, there's a boat. A motor vessel. It come into the estuary about
twenty minutes ago off Sheerness and dropped its hook."

"Well?" said the Lieutenant.

"A boat, sir. A big one. Big as these wrecks in the river and bigger.
And it runs by engines just like our tanks used to in the old days."

The Lieutenant dismissed the major with a motion of his hand. "Any
report on its flag?"

"Yessir," said Weasel, mollified now that he had his officer's
attention. "It's got horizontal bars, red and white, according to the
message, and a field up in the corner with a bunch of white stars."

The Lieutenant looked at the window in thought. "I can't remember any
such flag. And we've no books on it, either. Weasel, run down to the
barracks and see if any of the troops there know of it."

"Yessir. You think it's bad, sir?"

"How do I know? Be quick."

The Lieutenant sat down to his desk and stared unseeing at the
documents there which awaited his signature. He had a chilly
premonition like that time they had stormed the fortresses outside
Berlin, when only himself and his colonel had come back with less than
five hundred men out of six thousand. He shivered. Strange it was to
feel this way, to remember suddenly that a man had nerves. He picked
up his pen and then laid it down. It couldn't be cold in here, not
with the mid-August sun beating down outside.

Weasel came back. "Old Chipper knows it, sir. He says he saw it once
on an American vessel in Bordeaux just after the war began. He says he
was just a kid, but he said the flag was so pretty he couldn't help
remembering."

"And what nation is it?"

"The Union States, sir. I never heard of it myself."

"Union States?" The Lieutenant stood up and took another turn around
the room. "He means the United States of America. I recall studying
the tactics of Robert E. Lee at Rugby when he was fighting that
country. The United States of America--the country that started the
atom bombing--"

He sat down at his desk and dismissed Weasel and then, alone in that
frowning old throne room, he tried to think clearly. It was a strange
thing not to be able to. There was some sort of conflict in his mind
that he could not disentangle. He reached for his solitaire deck and
dealt out a hand. But he did not play it.

Every part of his being told him that he had to act swiftly. But he
was a soldier and, as a soldier, he primarily thought of repulsing an
invasion. And now, having become, perforce, a statesman, he knew that
there was a chance that this ship merely wanted to establish trade
like that he had with Scotland.

Because of his own victory on the Thames, he knew well how weak it
was. He had caused several guns to be laboriously repaired and a few
hundred heavy shells to be literally carved out of metal dug up from
old bombardments. Nothing could come up the Thames unless he passed
the word. Why this spirit of war which mounted so steadily in him?

Weasel came in. "Sir, another message. I just picked it off the
Wapping relay tower. The vessel is landing a small party at Sheerness
in a boat which is also driven by motor and very swiftly. Fast as a
plane, the message said, sir."

"Keep me informed," said the Lieutenant.

He sat where he was, not touching the food Mawkey brought at tea time.

Weasel came down from the upper battlement. He had a written message
this time, handed him by the girl who was on duty there, for Weasel
could not write, even though he could read the Gravesend Tower before
Wapping could get it down.

    To the Lieutenant.

    From Commanding Officer Sheerness Battery,
    Via Blinker, helio.

    U. S. S. _New York_ anchored this afternoon and landed captain
    of vessel and twenty marines and three civilians. States pacific
    intentions. Wishes permission of interview with the Lieutenant.

He read the message through twice. He could find no reason to refuse
such a request, though he knew that he should. But would it do any
harm to talk to them?

"Send word that permission is granted," said the Lieutenant. "Wait.
Send word to Swinburne, wherever he is, that he's needed here. And
wait again, Weasel. Have the adjutant issue Order A."

Weasel was startled, not to have Order A issued, which was the manning
of all guns and garrisons, but to hear a note of tired kindness in the
Lieutenant's voice. Another might not have detected it. But Weasel,
who had seen many officers face defeat and death, recognized it for
what it was. He stayed for a little longer and then, unwillingly,
turned and went out.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Lieutenant dealt another hand of solitaire, but he did not play
it. Bugles began to blare about the keep. Commands barked. He
wandered to the window and, half sitting on the ledge, looked down at
the Inner Ward.

Troops were hurrying out, dragging their equipment after them and
getting into it as they jolted each other, straightening out their
lines. These were infantry scouts whose positions lay about the base
of Tower Hill. A company of snipers was hurrying from their quarters
in the Bloody Tower to man the battlements of the outer wall, hands
full of bandoleers and spare rifles. Gian was checking his men as they
leaped by him and up the steps to their guns on the twelve towers of
the Inner Wall.

Mounted messengers were saddling skittish Scot horses, holding their
orders in their teeth and swearing as only couriers can swear. Bit by
bit these streamed out of the Inner Ward and thundered through the
Byward Tower and across the moat to be swallowed from sight by the
stone houses which circled the base of the hill.

The scout company of the Fourth Brigade, to which was intrusted
the defense of the pièce de résistance, the White Tower where the
Lieutenant had his quarters and offices in company with the ghosts
of England's monarchs, followed hard on the heels of Carstair up the
steps.

The hot August sun slanted its rays upon the swirling cloaks and
helmets--brightened in peace--of officers who came up from the town to
be detailed by Carstair on special duty.

The Lieutenant raised his eyes from the gray walls and blue uniforms
below and looked at the banner which floated lazily from its staff
upon the Byward Tower, over the gate. Satiny white it was, with the
insignia of a lieutenant embroidered upon it in gold. It had been
presented to him by the people and, to them, represented peace and
security and justice. To him it represented the confidence reposed
in him by his people, not unlike that which he had received from the
Fourth Brigade. No questions were asked or had ever been asked by his
soldiers or his people.

From his vantage point he could see far down the Thames and he looked
in that direction now. The river was spotted with traffic, ships from
his coasts, sailing up to London, barges plying across the stream or
bringing produce down from the upper reaches, small skiffs filled with
pleasure seekers. But these, as bugles resounded at the batteries,
were now making for shore, leaving the river a great yellow expanse,
hot in the sunlight.

Weasel came in. "Everything is ready, sir. I took it for granted you
did not want to be bothered with reports."

"Thank you, Weasel."

"Sir--"

But whatever Weasel said was engulfed in a roar of sound. The
Lieutenant instinctively moved back from the window and Weasel threw
himself flat on the pave. But no following scream resulted, no machine
guns chattered and, in a moment Weasel picked himself up. His gesture
was so thoroughly a part of training ingrained by the years that he
did not even remark upon it.

Mawkey hurled himself into the room and stood there, big-eyed and
hunched up. "A plane just went over!"

The snarl resounded again and Mawkey pushed himself flat against
the wall and tensed. The ship took two turns above London and then
vanished so swiftly to the east that it appeared to have shrunken
suddenly to nothing.

"Reconnaissance," said Weasel. "I haven't seen one of those for years!"

Carstair came in from above. "Sir, Gian signaled me to ask if you want
to shoot the next time it comes over."

"With what?" said the Lieutenant.

Carstair stood a little straighter. "Yes, that's so. I've never seen
anything so fast. All motors and guns and bombs."

The Lieutenant did not turn from the window. "Pass the word if anyone
wants to leave this fortress, he has my permission."

"I can answer that now," said Carstair. "When we leave it will be over
the wall into the river--dead."

The Lieutenant did not speak.

       *       *       *       *       *

Carstair beckoned and Weasel and Mawkey slid out, closing the doors
behind him. The Lieutenant hardly knew they were gone. Suddenly he
turned around and marched to his desk. He picked up his cards and then
hurled them to the floor. He went back to the window.

In a few minutes he saw the sun glance off metal far downriver. And
even as he looked the boat grew in size. It hurled back very little
spray, but it scudded upstream like some possessed water bug. It went
into reverse and shot sideways to the Queen's Steps at the Tower wharf
and out of it leaped a guard of marines, resplendent in blue.

The Lieutenant could not see what passed, but, in a moment, Carstair
came in. "Sir, they are armed, each man with a sort of miniature
machine gun. Your orders?"

"Is Swinburne here?"

"He came a moment ago."

"Send him up. And let them come in immediately after. I'll appreciate
it if you and any other officers who happen to be here will step in
for the reception."

"Let them in armed?"

"Why not?"

"Yes, sir." Carstair went away.

Presently Swinburne came up the steps. He was just back from a long
trip inland, inspecting some of the new homes of the countryside, and
he was still lathered by his horse and his boots were muddy. But his
one good eye blazed and his empty sleeve was thrust angrily into his
tunic pocket.

"What's this, old fellow?"

"United States of America. A battleship standing off Sheerness. Its
captain and some civilians coming up for an interview."

Swinburne scowled and laid his crop and cap upon the window seat.
"Anything I can do?"

"Just stand by."

Carstair stepped in. "Everyone else at his post along the river."

"All right. Show them up."

Swinburne was sensible of a stiffening in the Lieutenant's bearing as
he sat down in the great chair. Swinburne stood on his right, hand on
the chair back.

A double file of soldiers could be heard taking positions on the
landing, to their side of the door, and then Carstair opened and,
standing at attention, said, "Three Americans to see you, sir."

"Let them come in," said Swinburne.

Carstair stepped back on the inside. A glint of polished metal gleamed
where the marines stood at the top of the steps. The three Americans
marched between the honor-guard files and into the room. Carstair
closed the door and stood with back against it, arms folded. Probably
he was the only man in the garrison who knew the United States from
actual contact, for he had crossed it on his way to England fourteen
years before.

       *       *       *       *       *

The two gentlemen in the lead were dressed in somber clothing of a
loose cut which gave their rotund figures even more breadth. They
were both rather soft-looking, for their jowls were loose and their
stomachs protruded. One was clearly a dynamic fellow, whose head was
bushy with gray hair and whose eyes held a piercing look which was
almost a challenge. He was the leader.

"I," he said with unction, "am Senator Frisman of Arkansas. This is
my brother in diplomacy, Senator Breckwell, Jefferson Breckwell,
who represents the proud State of Ohio in our nation's capital at
Washington. And while we are party enemies, he being a Socialist and
myself a Social-democrat, we are firm friends. May I present Senator
Breckwell?"

Breckwell bowed. He was a rather vacant-faced fellow, completely bald,
having a pair of very mild and apologetic eyes which dropped the
instant they met the Lieutenant's.

Senator Frisman cleared his throat. "And may I also present that very
able captain of our nation's powerful fleet, who commands one of our
finest cruisers as well as our admiring respect, Captain Johnson."

Stealing an uneasy glance at Senator Frisman, Captain Johnson bowed.
He was a gaunt, hard fellow who smacked of the sea and the bridge. He
did not approve of Senator Frisman.

"And so," said Frisman, unaware of the silence which was greeting his
loquacity, "we are proud to be able to meet your majesty, for we have
excellent news for our English brothers."

Swinburne's voice had always had the quality of a sputtering fuse, but
now it sizzled. "You are addressing the Lieutenant, gentlemen. He has
been good enough to grant you audience. Please come to the point."

"The Lieutenant?" said Frisman. "But we have nothing to do with your
army. We wish to speak to your dictator or king or Communist leader--"

"'The Lieutenant' is a title," said Swinburne. "He rules here."

"But," said Frisman, "a lieutenant is just a lower rank in the army
and we--"

"The title," said Swinburne, keeping his patience, "has been removed
from our army list out of respect. You said something about a message."

Frisman realized suddenly that he wasn't doing so well. Captain
Johnson was glaring at him and even Senator Breckwell was fumbling
with his collar. They had suddenly become acutely aware of the
Lieutenant.

He sat quite still. Altogether too still. His eyes were calm, as
though masking a great deal, a fact which was far more effective
than an outright glare. He was slender and hard and good-looking,
having yet to celebrate his thirty-second birthday. His tunic was
blue, faded but well pressed and clean, innocent of any bright work
other than the simple insignia of his rank. He wore, as a habit too
old to break, cross-belts of dull leather, to which was bolstered an
automatic pistol. His small blue fatigue cap sat a little over one
ear, but his helmet, with visor raised, was close by upon his desk.
His cape, patched where a hundred and more bullets had struck, lay
over the back of his chair. He did not feel comfortable without these
things at his hand, for they had been part of him too long. A shaft of
late-afternoon sun came like a beam through the upper windows and lay
in a pool upon the desk before him, rendering the Lieutenant all the
more indefinite of image behind it.

       *       *       *       *       *

The antiquity of this place with its thick, scarred walls began to
enter into the trio. They were sensible that here was England, whether
in the garb of a soldier or in the gaudy robes of a king.

"Captain Johnson," said the Lieutenant "will you please step here to
the desk and be seated?"

Johnson was made uneasy by the order for it was an affront to the two
civilians. But civilians, to the Lieutenant, were either politicians
or peasants, both equally bad.

Johnson eased himself into the chair. He was a competent officer and
an excellent judge of men and he had some idea now of whom he faced.

"Captain Johnson," said the Lieutenant "a little while ago a battle
plane flew over London. That, I presume, was from your ship?"

"Yes," said Johnson. "We wished to make sure that the river was clear."

"And yet it might have dropped bombs."

"I am sorry if it has offended."

"I do not recall giving any permission other than that you might call
here."

"I offer my apologies."

"You have not been at war for many many years," said the Lieutenant.
"At least, so far as I know. The presence of that ship in our skies,
in other times, would have been construed as a declaration of war.
Unfortunately we had no anti-aircraft batteries or we would have shot
it down without orders, thus creating a very bad incident."

"If I had known--"

"That flight and the pictures you probably took of the countryside
and our batteries downriver have told you how poor are our defenses.
Against that one plane we are helpless."

Captain Johnson colored a little with shame. There had been pictures.
"I shall turn them over to you. Call in the guard and I shall bring
you the strips."

"That will do no good. You have already seen them. Very well. Let us
forget it. Will you please acquaint me with the purpose of this visit?"

Johnson hesitated, glancing at Frisman. The senator and his confrere
accepted it as an order and stepped closer to the desk, ranging beside
Johnson.

"We have come on a mission of mercy," said Frisman. "We know how
desolate your nation has been made by war--"

"Why didn't you come years ago?"

"The disease known as soldier's sickness put a stop to all
transatlantic traffic. And then the insect plagues--"

"Why aren't you afraid of these now?" said the Lieutenant.

"Because we have succeeded in perfecting serums and poisons to combat
the scourges. We have," he said eagerly, "a great quantity of this
serum aboard and if you like--"

"One was developed here. Out of human blood. And we need no serum for
we are naturally immune. And we need no plant-insect poison for we
have crops which withstand them."

"But food--" began Frisman. It was the start of something dramatic,
but it was cut off.

"We raise all the food and supplies which we can use."

Frisman sagged a little. He felt like a man beating against stone.
"Your--I mean, Lieutenant. It has been long since that cry, 'Hands
Across the Sea,' was sounded. But now, at last, it can be cried
out once more. We wish to do anything we can to rehabilitate your
country. We can have shiploads of machinery and skilled workmen,
planes, trains, steamers, which we can give you. Our only wish is to
see this country blossom. And we mean to say not a word about debts,
considering that the surrender of British colonies in the Americas
has evened the score completely. We are even prepared to restore this
nation to its once proud state, giving it back its African possessions
and all the development which has been done upon them. Your land cries
out for succor. We are back to the birthplace of our own proud nation,
offering to repay the debt of centuries--"

"Who is this man?" said the Lieutenant to Johnson.

The naval officer looked uncomfortable. "He is a great man in our
country, the leader of the majority group in the Senate and chairman
of the Foreign Affairs and Colonies Committee."

"Committee?" said the Lieutenant, for the word had taken on poison
from the B.C.P.

"Yes," beamed Frisman. "And my worthy friend, Senator Breckwell of
Ohio, is the leading light of the second great party of the United
States, the Socialist Party."

       *       *       *       *       *

England's Socialist leader had led an abortive revolt, starting it
with the assassination of many members of Parliament. The leader,
on trial, had gone free by giving up his lists and was later shot
as a traitor by his own people. The Lieutenant gave Jefferson
Breckwell a very perfunctory glance. He had no respect for creeds or
statesmen: between the two the Continent and the British Isles had
been destroyed. Thirty million fighting men and three hundred million
civilians had paid with their lives for mistaken faith in creeds and
statesmen.

The Lieutenant turned to the naval officer. Here he had someone with
whom he could talk, that he could anticipate, and, as one military
leader to another, trust.

"We do not need these things," said the Lieutenant. "We have almost
doubled our population in two years and we have the situation in hand.
We have food and we are happy. Machines only make unemployment and,
ultimately, politicians out of otherwise sensible men. Understand
me, Captain Johnson, for I speak true. We thank you for your aid,
but we do not need it. An influx of food and machines would disrupt
this country no less than a horde of strangers. We have found that
it is better to build than to destroy, for in building there is
occupation for the body and the mind. When each man does his best
with his materials at hand, he is proud of his work and is happy with
his life. Hatred only rises when some agency destroys or attempts to
destroy those things of which we are the most proud--our crafts, our
traditions, our faith in man.

"Captain Johnson, I have always been a soldier. Until a few years
ago I was continually surrounded by war; I did not know that such a
thing as peace existed.... I saw great, intricate fabrics of nations
come tearing down to dust and rubble and death; hatred was the cause
of this, a hatred bred by politicians against politicians, creeds
battling senseless creeds. In the last years I have found what peace
could mean and I am not anxious for war."

"We do not come speaking of war," said Johnson, aghast.

"The first step in any war is the landing of armed forces. A plane
overhead, marines out there on the landing, a cruiser off Sheerness--"

"Sir," cried Frisman, "the United States of America is a peace-loving
nation. We withdrew from the second phase of World War II because we
were atomic bombed, and sensibly refrained from re-entering even when
we had completely rebuilt because we well knew that we alone would
be the well of civilization when all here was destroyed. And now we
mean to rescue an exhausted people and restore the bright light of
culture--"

"Captain Johnson," said the Lieutenant, "at one time this nation was
densely overpopulated. The weak and stupid were supported by the king
with a dole. We shipped in great quantities of raw materials and
manufactured them. We shipped in our food or starved. But this land is
fertile and this nation can support itself. Empire was a mirage. With
it this land was involved in war. With it this land starved. We have
lost all our weaklings now. We are fifteen thousand people, and not
until almost a century has sped will we begin to take up the available
land. Perhaps then we will go all through the cycle once more. But
just now we see ahead a century of plenty and therefore a century of
internal peace. Then, perhaps, war will come again. But it will not
come until we again have so little that people will be foolish enough
to listen to the harpings of political mob makers. A new influx of
population now will restore that chaotic stupidity which your civilian
friend calls 'culture.' The only good government is that government
under which a people is busy and, as an individual, is valued for
himself. Such a government exists. We want no machines, no colonizers,
no foreign 'culture.' We are not an exhausted people, but a small,
compact band that was strong enough to survive bullets and bombs,
starvation and disease.

"I am neither a politician nor a statesman; I am a soldier. I know
nothing of the chicanery which goes by the name of diplomacy. But
I learned long ago that there is only one way to rule, and that is
for the good of all; that the function of a commanding officer of a
company or a state is to protect the rights of the individual within
the bounds of common good, but never to trifle with the actual welfare
of any man or to attempt to carry any man beyond his own ability and
strength, for to do so weakens the position of all and is not for
the common good. A state, gentlemen, is not a charity institution.
On this score alone I cannot accept your gifts. Now, if you please,
the interview is ended. I shall be pleased to receive a report from
my Sheerness Battery commander tomorrow morning that the horizon is
empty."

Swinburne had never heard the Lieutenant speak before, had never
believed that he could. But now he knew that the Lieutenant had
pleaded for the life of the country he had returned from the dead--and
it seemed that he had won.

       *       *       *       *       *

Yes, it seemed that he had won. Captain Johnson stood up. Frisman
glared, but was too baffled to find anything to say. Breckwell grinned
a foolish and bewildered grin. This boy in faded blue, backed by his
battle cape and flanked by his helmet, had made no move toward them.
He had anticipated their desires, had fully outlined, by inference,
their plans. He had left them nothing whatever to advance, for any
effort to compel him would be to accept the low valuations he had put
upon such motives. In the face of what he had said, the only decent
thing to do would be to leave England strictly alone.

Frisman writhed. He had a high opinion of his own diplomatic talents
and of his silver tongue. And yet, here was a soldier, actually a
junior officer of some sort, completely out-maneuvering him. Every
method of advance had been stopped, completely and thoroughly. They
could not attack, for he had told them that the place was defenseless
against them. They could not buy him, because he said that food and
machinery would ruin his country. They could not colonize the place,
because, guilelessly, he had made that into a form of a national
insult. He had not threatened or argued, for they had been able to
advance only a small portion of their desires before he had grasped
them all and had thrown them back in their faces.

Frisman almost heeded Captain Johnson's tugging hand. But then, before
Frisman, arose the figure of himself in the United States Senate,
pleading with tears in his voice to succor the starving women and
children of Europe, begging an appropriation for the cause and not
once mentioning the possibilities of colonization, for the press
had been extremely trying of late on the subject of the new-reborn
imperialistic aims of the Social-democratic régime. And Frisman saw
himself going back, his succor refused, his appropriation unspent and
himself the butt of the minority jokes. Suddenly it came over him that
he had been trussed up in a snare of words, that it did not matter
what he said, backed up as he was by a cruiser. But still--the strange
quietness of this officer--No. No, he could not threaten. He did not
know if Johnson would back him--

Before him rose up the images of all those millions and millions of
idle workers who had boosted him to where he was on the promise that
he would give them the wide horizons to redeem, in place of those huge
areas of radio-active prohibited land. This country alone would take
twenty millions of them. And what projects for an industrial state!
To rebuild--To restore the nation which had given birth to the United
States--How his name would thunder down the pages of history!

He had had a plan. All this had evolved from one incident. America had
gotten along so well for so long without Europe that public sentiment
had been against any future interference whatever until--

Johnson was beckoning, having already gotten Breckwell to the door
which Carstair held open. Frisman felt that the pause was awkward, but
he knew that if he left this room the whole project was at an end and
his promises and pleas were all empty.

"Lieutenant," said Frisman, stepping up to the desk again, "there is
one fact with which I feel I should acquaint you for your own peace of
mind."

The Lieutenant did not speak.

"This spring," said Frisman, "there arrived on our Florida coast a
Spanish fishing vessel. It held a very strange crew and stranger
passengers. And the tales which were told by these passengers of the
rapacity of the present English government stirred our populace until
something had to be done. We heard of the wanton murder of your last
Communist ruler, of soldiers pillaging and burning all that was left
of England, of children starving and women despoiled. This cruel
aftermath of devastating war was more than our people could permit.
They demanded that something be done. The passengers of that fishing
vessel are aboard the U. S. S. _New York_, off Sheerness. What shall I
tell them?"

       *       *       *       *       *

As Frisman had spoken, the Lieutenant had tensed. He came suddenly
to his feet now, white of visage and harsh of voice. "Who are these
liars?"

"The heads of the British army in France," said Frisman. "General
Victor and his adjutant, Colonel Smythe."

Swinburne had swiftly capped the Lieutenant's holster flap. Frisman
completely missed the byplay.

"We cannot allow," said Frisman, "a continuance of such affairs.
Our people would denounce us. As the chosen representative of a
powerful government I must demand that a place be made for these two
officers so that they can be certain their land will not be completely
shattered. And you cannot help but accede to this, for they are, in
the final analysis, your own superiors."

Swinburne spoke. "You seem to forget that you speak to the ruler of
England. Such demands are no less insulting than your accusations. He
has bidden you to leave. Do so."

But Senator Frisman had seen his advantage. "I cannot understand any
reason why you should not honor your own superiors if your rule is as
righteous as you claim. Freedom of person is the test for such a rule.
It is our purpose to repatriate these men and give them their just
share in this country's affairs."

Swinburne had the holster flap securely closed and kept it that way.

The Lieutenant steadied. "Your proposal is very plain. Unable to do
business with us, you are prepared to install, by force if necessary,
a government which will let you have your way here."

"Rather crudely stated," said Frisman, "but perhaps it is near the
truth. We cannot allow a populace to be abused--"

"Please don't attempt a cloak of humanitarianism," said the
Lieutenant. "It becomes you very badly. You want this land. Your
nation is overpopulated today as ours was many years ago. Perhaps much
of your land is spoiled? You need England to ease that burden."

The Lieutenant's voice was almost monotonous, and Frisman, feeling a
decided gain, lost his earlier respect for this fellow. "If you wish
to so state it."

"In the event that this nation was to honor your requests, would you
be prepared to give those people still alive here every benefit and
liberty?"

"I should say so."

"And you would be prepared to deliver up to us this General Victor and
Colonel Smythe?"

Frisman smiled and shook his head. "So that is the direction in which
this leads? It is wholly impossible. Do you consider us traitors?"

"You have all the force," said the Lieutenant. "It is not for me to
bargain." He sat down, and for a little while, somberly regarded
his helmet. "Very well. Bring those two men here and what documents
you might have concerning any treaty, and tonight we shall arrange
matters."

"You definitely agree?"

"I agree to make Colonel Smythe and General Victor the supreme heads
of the English government." And he forestalled Frisman by adding, "Now
you may go."

Frisman, beaming, went. Just before the door was closed he looked
back. The beam of light from the high window was gone now. The
Lieutenant sat very still in the murky gloom of the ancient room, eyes
cast down.




                               CHAPTER X


Swinburne was too amazed to find anything to say at first. He wandered
about the room with agitated steps, pausing now and then to stare
through the window at the darkening river. Finally he came back to the
desk, having seen the gig depart.

"Lieutenant, I cannot understand this. To surrender without any battle
to a power which will wipe out everything which was England--"

"A power," said Carstair by the door, "which is the greatest on earth
now."

"That may be," said Swinburne, "but England is England. And to give up
everything for which we have worked these past years, to be swallowed
up in a beehive of humanity from alien shores--I can't support these
things."

"The United States could wipe us out completely," said Carstair.

"Better be wiped out in a blood bath than to quit like cowards,"
growled Swinburne. "They came here to place Victor at the head of the
government so that he would do their bidding. Victor! He sold out
a dictator that placed all his trust in him. He was too slippery a
turncoat to be kept even by _Hogarthy_! He bungled everything he ever
did in France and cost Heaven knows how many millions of lives! And,
having betrayed his army to set up his own régime, he now goes whining
to the United States in the guise of a monarchist! And you," he cried,
suddenly angry and facing the Lieutenant, "are agreeable to placing
him in your place!"

Mawkey slipped in, his quick eyes not missing anything that went on.
"Sir, Captain Thorbridge from Sheerness is here."

The Lieutenant motioned that he be admitted.

Thorbridge was a tall youth who spoke habitually in a staccato voice.
He took his duties of ship inspector at Sheerness very seriously.

"Sir, I've ridden hell out of a horse. Inspected the U. S. S. _New
York_. They didn't seem to care what I saw. I came up here as quick as
I could. Gad, what a ship!

"Sir, she's nearly six hundred feet long. She's got engines they claim
drive her at eighty knots. She's like a torpedo and nothing's exposed
on her at all. There's a couple hatches they let planes out of and by
Heaven, sir, those planes can land right back. The Hay's Heliplane,
they're called. Rotor props, no wings, go straight up at four hundred,
straight ahead at six hundred and fifty.

"Sir, you ought to see her armament. She hasn't a gun aboard. Every
projectile is its own gun like those rocket shells we saw about ten
years ago at the front, only these really work. They're like rocket
planes and they go up out of chutes and they fire at any range up to a
thousand miles. Got away from gun barrels and danger of explosion and
all that. They claim one of those shells could wipe out any ship and
half a dozen any city.

"Sir, she steers herself and runs herself and submerges if necessary,
and by Heaven the only thing she won't do is fly. And they claim
nothing except her own armament can make a dent in her!

"I came right up. If she was to cut loose on us there wouldn't be a
damned thing left, sir. Not a damn thing!"

"Thank you," said the Lieutenant.

Thorbridge withdrew with the feeling that something was very wrong
with the Lieutenant. He would have been convinced could he have seen
what happened after.

The Lieutenant slumped more deeply into the great chair. "You see,
gentlemen?"

Swinburne paced about. "But, confound it, there might be some way of
making concessions without putting Victor and Smythe at the head of
everything! Man, don't you know what they'll do? They'll revive all
the creeds and claptrap that we once had. They'll ape their masters
and throw our people into the nearest ditch!"

"As long as the ship out there is convinced that this must be done,"
said the Lieutenant, "it must be done. They refused to give us Victor
and Smythe for execution which they justly deserve. They'll treat
fairly that way, anyhow."

"Fairly! They're afraid to leave you here!" snapped Swinburne. And
then he considered what he had just said and came back to the desk.
"The first duty of any officer is to his command, Lieutenant. This
nation is just as much your command as your brigade ever was. I've
never heard it said that you neglected that brigade. And yet you can
conceive of allowing us to fall into the hands of two renegade tools
of a powerful and voracious--"

"You talk like that Frisman," said the Lieutenant tiredly. He sat
a little straighter then. "I've never neglected my command. To do
other than grant the wishes of these people would be to wipe out
England completely. They ask only for an incident to take us over for
a colony. Can't you see that? Only if our government here behaves
perfectly can we stave off becoming part of another nation. So long
as we can prove ourselves to be acting in the best interests of
everyone, there will be no excuse whatever for them to assimilate us.
We must see that this government acts in good faith, that it is fairly
conducted for all, that no incident will occur which will permit them
to establish martial rule here. Please," he said, slumping back,
"please remember what I have said."

Swinburne was plainly disgusted. "A thief comes up and sticks a gun in
your ribs and so, rather than risk getting hurt, you tamely say: 'Yes,
here is my wallet. And my wives and goods at home are at your complete
disposal.' You call that statesmanship!"

"He can do nothing else," said Carstair.

"Bah!" said Swinburne. "These years of peace have turned him into
putty!" And he stalked from the room, slamming the door behind him.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Carstair," said the Lieutenant, "he is going out to call a council
of officers. Please make sure that you give them my orders. I am to
have this evening. They will have the tomorrows. Tell them that upon
the return of the people, they must come in here and stand as witness
to what takes place and to pledge their faith to Victor and Smythe so
long as they may rule."

"But they won't!" cried Carstair. "We are field officers!"

"Nevertheless, ask them to have faith and do what I say. It is for the
best. Have I ever given a foolish order before, good friend?"

Carstair hesitated and his memory shot back over the past to the time
he had first seen this man at C.H.Q. "No. No, you have never given a
foolish order."

"Then tell them to save their revolts for the morrow and to let
me have tonight. They must come in and agree--that is necessary,
Carstair."

"They'll accuse you of cowardice."

"Let them."

"Can't you see that the first official act of Victor will be the
ordering of your execution?" begged Carstair. "As soon as those
Americans have left, Victor will rake up followers from the rabble and
Heaven knows what things will happen. And we won't be able to touch
him. They'll leave a large guard with him, that's a certainty. Did
you see the arms of those marines? Why, that twenty, with those small
automatic weapons and those bullet-proof jackets and their pocket
radios--"

"I care nothing about these things; I am only thinking of my
command--for when the command is destroyed the officer also dies. But,
one way or another an officer lives so long as his command lives. Go
now, Carstair, and tell them what I say."

There was something in the Lieutenant's tone which made Carstair fear
for him; but the Australian said no more. Quietly he closed the door
behind him.

Sometime later Mawkey slipped in, looking smaller and more twisted
than usual and his eyes dull. He carried a tray for an excuse and
stood by while the Lieutenant minced at the food.

"Sir," ventured Mawkey, "is it true that you are going to let General
Victor become the ruler here?"

The Lieutenant nodded wearily.

"If you say so, sir, then it's so. But me and Bulger and Pollard and
Weasel and Carstone have been talking. We got it figured out that
the way you made a rabbit out of that Victor, the first thing he'll
do will be to kill you. Now, if we was to shoot this Victor and this
Smythe as soon as they got inside the Tower--"

"Those marines would murder the lot of you."

"Yessir. But that's better than letting Victor execute the Lieutenant."

"Haven't you seen the guns those marines carry?"

"Sure. They would tear a man in half and nothing we've got could stop
those slugs. But we ain't afraid of no marines, sir. It's the man,
that's what counts."

"Mawkey, you'll do as I tell you. As soon as we get the proper
documents signed in here, every one of my soldiers and officers is to
leave Tower Hill."

"What's that, sir?"

"And stay away."

"And you, sir?"

"I'll stay here."

Mawkey was troubled, but he knew no other way to counter this. It was
plain to him that the Lieutenant had suddenly developed a suicidal
mania like so many other officers had in the face of defeat.

"Remember my orders," said the Lieutenant when Mawkey had picked up
the tray.

"Yessir," said Mawkey, but with difficulty for there was something
wrong with his throat and his eyes smarted.

       *       *       *       *       *

Promptly at eight, the gig slowed to a stop at the Queen's Steps and
made fast her lines. The party was as before with the addition of two
more members. And the Tower was as before with the exception that its
guards glared with sullen mien upon the intruders.

The files of marines felt the heaviness of the atmosphere and tried
to put their boots down quietly upon the pave to still the echoes of
the ancient, gray battlements. They were experienced soldiers, those
marines, with the high-tuned senses of the fighting man, for they
had served with Clayton in Mexico, taking all the shock work so the
army could grab the glory. They had wiped out the last fortress in
the Yellow Sea; they had chased down the last mad dictator in Central
America. In ten years of service they had set the Stars and Stripes
to float above all the Western Hemisphere and half of Asia. And they
knew the feel of hostility held off with effort. But, aside from their
soldier-sailor selves and their professional duties, they were not at
ease about this thing, for they saw the antiquated rifles and field
guns in the ranks of the guard and it jibed strangely with these faces
so like their own. It was as if some of themselves had suddenly been
transplanted to an enemy--and they had never fought their own race
before.

But if the marines were still and if their young officer was alert
as a cat, none of this reached Frisman and his companions. Captain
Johnson had seen fit to stay aboard, for he had no stomach for this,
and Frisman was relieved about it, never having liked anything which
smacked of military etiquette and stiffness.

Colonel Smythe and Frisman kept up a brisk stream of
self-congratulatory conversation. They were much of a kind, though
the senator looked like a lion beside this jackal. General Victor's
large, lolling head was bobbing erectly as he tried to make himself
look as much like a conqueror as possible. Even Breckwell discovered
self-importance and managed to get some of it into his usually empty
face.

They were passed through the gates and the Inner Ward and into the
Norman keep. As they mounted the steps they began to get themselves
in order, the marines looking closely to the fighting characteristics
of the place and Frisman clearing his throat and thinking up some
resounding trite phrases.

About thirty men of the old Fourth Brigade were drawn about the
entrance to the great hall, and among them were Bulger, Pollard,
Weasel, Tou-tou, old Chipper, Gian and Mawkey, a rather large number
of high-ranking noncoms for so small a group. They stood as though
they were permanent fixtures of the grim, old place.

Carstair stood at the door and watched them arrive without giving any
sign that he saw them at all. But when they were all there he turned
and stepped in.

"They have arrived, sir."

"Let them come in."

Frisman pushed forward. He had little eye for detail, but even to him
things had changed. The room was somberly lit by two candelabrums and
a girandole, but the candles did no more than intensify the darkness
of the lofty ceiling and the shadows on the walls.

The Lieutenant sat at his desk, robed in his battle cloak, helmet
before him. All the contents of the files were tied into bundles on
the floor and what few possessions he had were laid out beside them.

Along the wall was a stony frieze of officers who gave Frisman a
glance and then bent a harsh regard upon Victor and Smythe.

       *       *       *       *       *

Victor lost a little of his certainty. His wabbly head bobbed as he
scanned the line. He recognized them one by one. Field officers that
he had failed to trick into turning back their commands and some that
he had. Victor gave a glance to the marines outside and was instantly
reassured.

"Good evening, sir," said Frisman. "And gentlemen," to the officers.
"I trust that we are all of the same mind that we were this afternoon."

The Lieutenant fingered a document before him. "I am. Shall we get
through this thing as quickly as possible?"

"Certainly," said Frisman. "Here are my credentials and such, giving
me power to act freely in this matter. No restraints were placed upon
me by my government, as you will see."

The Lieutenant barely glanced at them. He gave Frisman a cold stare.
"I have prepared the terms. To avoid any friction or complication, I
have drawn up a governmental procedure. I shall withdraw completely."

Victor almost smiled.

"But," said the Lieutenant, "I have a condition to make. That you will
keep my plan in operation."

"And this plan?" said Frisman.

"General Victor shall be in full and unopposed command of the country
and all its defenses. In case anything happens to him, he is to be
succeeded by Colonel Smythe, who will again have dictatorial powers.
In case anything should happen to Smythe, the country is to be
governed by its officers corps, who will recognize Swinburne as their
chairman. Is this agreeable?"

"Certainly," said Frisman, not having hoped for so much.

"Further," said the Lieutenant, "I have limited immigration of
Americans to England to a thousand a month. These immigrants are to
purchase their land from the present owners at the fair price, which
shall, in no case, be less than fifteen pounds an acre at the exchange
of five dollars to a pound."

"That is rather steep," said Frisman.

"For English land? Indeed, it is rather cheap," said the Lieutenant.
"Do you agree?"

"In view of all else, yes."

"Then, to proceed. All titles to the land issued during my régime
shall be honored. Agreed?"

"Now, about law enforcement. The national police shall be wholly
within British control, just as the government shall be. No man shall
be an officer in the army unless he is born British. Agreed?"

"You drive a stiff bargain."

"I am giving you a country. If you want it you shall have to accept
these conditions. This document of yours gives you full power to
reorganize any government. That is binding, is it not?"

"Yes."

"Then you have reorganized this government no more than to accept
General Victor here as its chief. All judges will remain British.
Agreed?"

"Yes."

"You are to turn over to this new government adequate methods of
defense. Equipment equal to that of your own troops. And in quantity
to arm forty thousand men to be delivered not later than next month.
Agreed?"

"Yes, of course."

"All laws as laid down by myself will continue in force. All honors
conferred by me shall be respected. And if you are willing to sign
this and have it witnessed, the business is done."

Frisman looked the document over. He wanted nothing better than
this, for it meant that he could ease the pressure of the idle in
the Americas. Very few had any liking for the new South American
States. But the climate and soil of England was a definite lure.
And when they had Europe, a feat for which the unemployed had been
anxiously waiting, the whole thing would be solved. Yes, this document
was very carefully phrased and very binding. But with Victor at the
head--Frisman smiled and signed.

When the formalities were finished the Lieutenant handed the document
to a sour Swinburne and turned back to address Frisman. "I am now
withdrawing completely from the government of England, relinquishing
all title and command. Here is a statement to that effect for your
records." And he handed the paper over. "And now, if all is in order,
I have one last order to give."

"Of course," said Frisman.

"Gentlemen," said the Lieutenant to his officers, "you will please
carry out my last request to you. Evacuate Tower Hill with all troops
so that General Victor can feel free to organize a new guard. If he
wishes to call any of you, let him find you in the town."

       *       *       *       *       *

Bitterly they filed past the Lieutenant, past the marines at the door
and vanished down the steps. For some little time there was a rhythmic
sound of marching and then, slowly, silence descended upon the nearly
deserted Tower Hill.

The Lieutenant, having seen them go from the window, turned back to
the room. His face was impassive. He picked up his helmet and put it
on, his glance lingering for a moment on the weapons of the marines
who had now entered the room. His next statement was very strange to
them all.

"When an officer loses his command that officer is also lost. But
when that command remains, no matter what happens to its officer, he
has not failed. General Victor, you are in complete command of this
government. Next in line is Smythe. After that the corps of officers
as a council. You all agree, I hope, that I now have nothing whatever
to do with the British government?"

They nodded, a little mystified. Victor's wabbly head bobbed in
complete and earnest agreement.

"I am a civilian now," said the Lieutenant, "for I even relinquish my
rank, as that paper I gave you will show. The law applies wholly to
me, even though I made the law. The British government, now under you,
General Victor, is not at all responsible for my actions."

"True, true," said Smythe.

"Then," said the Lieutenant, standing before them all, "I shall do
what I have to do."

His hand flashed from beneath the battle cloak. Flame stabbed and
thundered.

Victor, half his head blown off, reeled and slumped.

Smythe tried to cover the hole in his chest with his hands. He sought
to scream, but only blood came. He tripped over Victor and thudded
down, writhing.

Frisman stood in stupefied amazement, finally to lift his eyes in
horror to the Lieutenant. And the thought had no more than struck home
to Frisman than he flung himself back to get the protection of the
marines. Breckwell began to gibber, unable to move.

The marines swept forward. Like a duelist the Lieutenant raised
his arm and fired. A bullet ricocheted from the marine officer's
breastplate and, instinctively, he fired at the source.

The bullet tore through the cloak as though it had been flame and the
cloak, paper. The Lieutenant staggered back and strove to lift his gun
again.

A coughing chatter set up just outside the door. Two marines went
down and the rest whirled. Carstone was there, astride the saddle of
a pneumatic. The marines charged toward him, scarcely touched by the
slow slugs.

Carstone's face vanished, but his fingers kept the trips down. The gun
tilted up and, still firing, raked high on the wall.

Over Carstone swirled a compact knot of fighters. Tou-tou wasted no
time with bullets, but used the butt of his gun. Mawkey smashed into
the mass with his chain. Bulger carved a wide path with his bayonet
and almost got to the Lieutenant before he staggered, gripping at his
stomach, to go down.

The Lieutenant tried to shout to his men, but he could get no sound
forth. In agony he watched them cut to pieces by superior weapons.
Tou-tou down. Pollard, his arm gone, fighting on. A tangled,
thundering mass of soldiery, restricted by the walls, jammed into a
whirlpool of savage destruction.

[Illustration: _A tangled thundering mass of soldiery, restricted by
the walls, jammed into a whirlpool of savage destruction._]

Somebody was tugging at the Lieutenant's shoulders. The room began to
spin from the pain of it. Again he tried to cry out and again no sound
came forth.

He was falling down, down, down in a red-walled pit which had a clear
brilliance at the bottom. And then blackness swept away everything.
Blackness and nothingness--forever.

       *       *       *       *       *

Above the Byward Gate on Tower Hill that flag still flies; the gold is
so faded that only one who knows can trace the marks which once made
so clear the insignia of a lieutenant, the white field is bleached and
patched where furious winds have torn it. It is the first thing men
look to in the morning and the last thing men see when the sky fades
out and the clear, sad notes of retreat are sounded by the British
bugler on Tower Hill.

That flag still flies, and on the plaque below are graven the words:

_When that command remains, no matter what happens to its officer, he
has not failed._


                                THE END