7

The airfield behind the front lines of the Authoritarian Army was already deserted, and the shell–torn area beyond seemed equally abandoned, except for the World Police who were dropping down out of the air, making their more or less dexterous landings, and coming together into little groups. Farther to the north–west and slanting away westward lay the broken country of the trenches and a couple of ruined villages, and still remoter, flame–shot masses of smoke rose from the Allied Headquarters against a clear golden sunset.

The bombing planes had zoomed up overhead and vanished in the eastward sky. They swept round in a great curve and went straight back to Stockholm, leaving everything to Rud. Bellacourt knew he could not stomach the sight of his handiwork. The thought of Guernica proved to be no consolation to him. But from Stockholm he sent on his planes from America as they came to hand, and put them at the service of the World Police. They spiralled down out of the twilight and dropped more and more parachutists.

Rud and Olders advanced across that war–torn landscape, and as they did so, the descending men of the World Police converged upon them and fell in as a sort of guard. A rabble of soldiers joined them. A huge cat bolted out of a shell–hole, and then another. "The cats eat the rats and the rats eat us," sang one of the Totalitarian soldiers. Men's heads and shoulders came up out of the ground, watchfully. They decided to clamber out. An increasing number of men emerged from the trenches and dug–outs ahead. The desolation became populous.

"What's German for Fraternisation?" demanded Rud.

"Try Verbrüderung," said Olders.

It seemed right.

Then the men began to realise that this determined–looking little gnome who had come to them out of the air was Rud, the World Director, the Voice of the Common Man. The Soldiers' and Workers' Committee came to him as a matter of course.

Fraternisation, they discovered, had already gone far since the order to Cease Fire had released the pent–up good will of the common soldiers. There had been a confused struggle on the Democratic side, which were mostly English in this sector, to maintain discipline and keep up the attitude of a victorious army. Protesting officers had ordered the men back to their trenches and flourished revolvers. But where the men persisted they had usually decided not to shoot. This was the state of affairs along most of the front. There were very few American or British officers murdered. There were more on the opposite side, especially among the Bavarians and Prussians. If Rud had ever had any doubts of the effective permeation of the Common–sense propaganda, his reception on either side of that deliquescent war front would have dispelled them.

No one seemed to question his authority and the droning of Bellacourt's planes overhead endorsed it. The bombing of the central group of buildings had left the entire army in a state of dismayed interrogation. It was, as Rud had foreseen, stunned. An army is a vast organisation trained to take orders; for an hour of agonising paralysis there was no one at all to give it orders, and then Rud and Olders appeared, with an escort of World Police, confident and assured, under the aegis of the planes. The decapitated host crystallised about its new head, fell naturally into postures of obedience. Here was order anyhow. And Orders. Life seemed to have become rational again. Officials came to Rud, saluted, reported their functions and were given directions.

Rud had the word passed. "Maintain discipline. All is as it should be. Reedly wanted to make himself Dictator of the World. He had prepared a coup d'etat and he has been killed. Every man to his quarters…"

The prostrate routines of life stood up again…"To–morrow," he said to Olders, "we shall have them playing football."