Squadron Quotes

Fedin laughed outright, a grim, calculating gesture as hard and unfeeling as cold steel. “Twenty million Russians have been slaughtered by the Fascists in the last six years..... Always remember this, Squadron Leader. It was our war, our victory and now it is our Berlin. We tolerate your presence in this city… if that.

Siren Song This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons even though they see beached skulls the song nobody knows because anyone who had heard it is dead, and the others can’t remember. Shall I tell you the secret and if I do, will you get me out of this bird suit? I don’t enjoy it here squatting on this island looking picturesque and mythical with these two feathery maniacs, I don’t enjoy singing this trio, fatal and valuable. I will tell the secret to you, to you, only to you. Come closer. This song is a cry for help: Help me! Only you, only you can, you are unique at last. Alas it is a boring song but it works every time.

Rogue Squadron doesn’t run. Unless we really, really have to." "No, this will be Wraith Squadron’s mission." "We don’t mind running. Even when we don’t have to.

I don't have to blow up everything I see... I just like to.

I can kill with a single word. I can hurl a ball of fire into the midst of my enemies. I rule a squadron of skeletal warriors, who can destroy by touch alone. I can raise a wall of ice to protect those I serve. The invisible is discernible to my eyes. Ordinary magic spells crumble in my presence... But I bow in the presence of a master. -- Lord Soth to Raistlin Majere

Sithspit! What's that?' 'That's the sun, Wedge. It's after dawn.' 'Well, it offends me. Turn it off.' 'It's a hundred thirty, hundred forty million klicks from here.' 'Go up in your X-wing and shoot it down for me.

Honoria, you see, is one of those robust, dynamic girls with the muscles of a welter-weight and a laugh like a squadron of cavalry charging over a tin bridge. A beastly thing to have to face over the breakfast table. Brainy, moreover. The sort of girl who reduces you to pulp with sixteen sets of tennis and a few rounds of golf and then comes down to dinner as fresh as a daisy, expecting you to take an intelligent interest in Freud.

(“An eye for an eye,” Mac said at the squadron reunion. Until everyone was blind, Teddy wondered?)

I'm the smartest man in the world. Once I wore a cape in public, and fought battles against men who could fly, who had metal skin, who could kill you with their eyes. I fought CoreFire to a standstill, and the Super Squadron, and the Champions. Now I have to shuffle through a cafeteria line with men who tried to pass bad checks. Now I have to wonder if there will be chocolate milk in the dispenser. And whether the smartest man in the world has done the smartest thing he could do with his life.

Need to get to Ruislip by sparrow-fart though', said the squadron leader. 'Think you can do that? Can I come along for the ride?

So rode the squadrons out against the grey steel foe, adding another dash of red to the sunset glow.

No, General. I'm not your subordinate. And what I'm coming dangerously close to is violence. -General Wedge Antilles

The mythology warped and twisted back along itself until Buffy Summers, the girl who once railed against the unfairness of being Chosen, looked at a squadron of girls who were just like she'd been and took away their right to Choose.

I marked their location in case Kell wanted to blow them up or something.” “I don’t have to blow up everything I see. I just like to.

Impressionable men in the squadron like Dobbs and Captain Flume were so deeply disturbed by Hungry Joe's shrieking nightmares that they woudl begin to have shrieking nightmares of their own, and the piercing obscenities they flung into the air every night from their separate places in the squadron rang against each other in the darkness romantically like the mating calls of songbirds with filthy minds.

Parents are unpredictable when their children are involved,” Harding said. “I’d much rather fight a squadron of Forgotten than deal with an affluent mother who thinks her son is in danger.

As Han once told me, "Stealth and subtlety work well, but for making lasting impressions, a blaster does just fine.

She had a laugh like a squadron of cavalry charging over a tin bridge.

With a little ingenuity and vision, he had made it all but impossible for anyone in the squadron to talk to him, which was just fine with everyone, he noticed, since no one wanted to talk to him anyway.

No genuine Irishman could relax in comfort and feel at home in a pub unless he was sitting in deep gloom on a hard seat with a very sad expression on his face, listening to the drone of bluebottle squadrons carrying out a raid on the yellow cheese sandwich.

You can't look dignified when you're having fun.

Begging your pardon, sir, but you’re crazy enough to be a Wraith." "Until you’ve crewed with me for a few years, kid, you have no idea what ‘crazy’ means.

The fuel for imagination comes from the feeling in your heart.

...and then quite suddenly I found that I had no rider, that I had no weight on my back, and that I was alone out in front of the squadron.

Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds (20) In ranks and squadrons and right form of war, Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol. The

Chorus of old men: If we give them the least hold over us, 'tis all up! their audacity will know no bounds! We shall see them building ships, and fighting sea-fights like Artemisia; nay if they want to mount and ride as cavalry, we had best cashier the knights, for indeed women excel in riding, and have a fine, firm seat for the gallop. Just think of all those squadrons of Amazons Micon has painted for us engaged in hand-to-hand combat with men.

Often we may even smile or laugh at adversity, but all people share the same passions. They are merely manifest differently according to one's culture and conditioning.

Tomer: “What's this?” Cabinet: “Wt's ths?” Wedge: “Cabinet.” Tomer: “I know it's a cabinet, but it's talking.” Cabinet: “...ts tlkng” Janson: “Oh that. It's the Catann Minister of Crawling Into Very Small Spaces.” Tycho: “He bet Wedge he could fold himself in the that cabinet, around the shelves and all.” Hobbie: “Never bet against Wedge. The Minister gets to stay in there until he admits that it was a stupid bet and that Wedge doesn't owe him anything.

Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation Delivered on December 8, 1941 Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives: Yesterday, December 7th, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack. It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace. The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu. Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island. Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation. As commander in chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us. Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph -- so help us God. I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire.

Welcome aboard Mon Remonda. Let’s get the rest of your pilots in... so I can get out of this torture suit." "But, sir, I was just going to say how smart you looked in your uniform. I think we ought to stay here, in uniform, a couple of hours so the holographers can capture the image. You know, for the historians." "Wedge, I think I’m going to have you killed." "Yes, sir. I trust you’ll wear your dress uniform for an event like that.

I was told by “Chesty” Puller* years ago, there is only a hairline’s difference between a Navy Cross and a general court-martial.

Congratulations flew fast and furious when Major Mullen’s squadron landed, for it had unquestionably been one of the most successful ‘shows’ ever undertaken by the squadron.

Sergeant Paul Ramoneda, a twenty-eight-year-old baker with the Ninth Food Service Squadron, was one of the first to reach the bomber.

She raised her head and saw a squadron of fighter planes. She stretched her hand high as if she could grab hold and climb away from what she had done, from who she was.

This, she realized suddenly, was probably the best squadron command she would ever have—unless,

Men,” Colonel Cargill began in Yossarian’s squadron, measuring his pauses carefully. “You’re American officers. The officers of no other army in the world can make that statement. Think about it.

Mission One is the meeting with Zsinj. Face commands and has chosen Dia and Kell to accompany him. This is all intelligence gathering, very delicate, which is why the crew is full of deadly killers.

You're the new squadron commander,' Colonel Cathcart had shouted rudely across the railroad ditch to him. 'But don't think it means anything, because it doesn't. All it means is that you're the new squadron commander.

The important thing is to keep them pledging,' he explained to his cohorts. 'It doesn't matter whether they mean it or not. That's why they make little kids pledge allegiance even before they know what "pledge" and "allegiance" mean.' To Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren, the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade was a glorious pain in the ass, since it complicated their task of organizing the crews for each combat mission. Men were tied up all over the squadron signing, pledging and singing, and the missions took hours longer to get under way. Effective emergency action became impossible, but Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren were both too timid to raise any outcry against Captain Black, who scrupulously enforced each day the doctrine of 'Continual Reaffirmation' that he had originated, a doctrine designed to trap all those men who had become disloyal since the last time they had signed a loyalty oath the day before. It was Captain Black who came with advice to Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren as they pitched about in their bewildering predicament. He came with a delegation and advised them bluntly to make each man sign a loyalty oath before allowing him to fly on a combat mission.

fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife; That never set a squadron in the field, Nor the division of a battle knows More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric, Wherein the toged consuls can propose As masterly as he: mere

Janson gave him a look that was all mock cheer. “Oh, wonderful. I killed his father. He hates me. He knows how to make bombs. Come on, Wedge, how does this story end?

When Galen was first courting Jessamy,' Raphael said with a brush of his thumb over her nipple when their lips parted, 'he began to teach flight skills to the little ones. Over time, it has become a tradition—Galen is always the one who gives basic flight instruction to the babes, and some, like Izak, never stop training with him.' The idea of Galen, with his wings akin to a northern harrier’s, leading a squadron of babies—not all of whom could fly exactly straight—had Elena shaking her head. 'I’m sorry, I need to see to believe this. It’s like you just told me the sky turns purple every Wednesday.

A green X-wing closed in tighter to the formation. "Yes, sir." Though distorted by the comm system, the voice sounded indulgent rather than military. "That's 'Yes, Wedge' until we're formally returned to duty." The commander smiled. "Or perhaps, 'Yes, Exalted One.' Or 'Yes, O envy of all Corellia.' Or-

A mosquito. Up here, once the bloodthirsty insects got a bead on you, they came in like a squadron of fighter planes. They made a noise like an incoming missile, had the sting of a harpoon, and their bite left a lump the size of a golf ball. Here

It was among the knowledgeable others that one hoped to be talked about and admired. It was not impossible—the world of squadrons is small. The years would bow to you; you would be remembered, your name like a thoroughbred’s, a horse that ran and won.

Rising above the squadrons, so he was visible to all, he raised his arm and his sword. “This is our land,” he said, augmenting his voice so it’d reach every man and woman, mortal and immortal, who’d fight this day. “We will not be intimidated, and we will not surrender. We did not begin this war, but we will end it!” A roar shook the world, arms and voices raised in solidarity.

Strange as it may seem, the Air Force, except in the air, is the least mobile of all the services. A squadron can reach its destination in a few hours, but its establishments, depots, fuel, spare parts, and workshops take many weeks, and even months, to develop.

A quarter of them came from countries overrun by the Nazis as well as from the Dominions: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Rhodesia and South Africa. There were so many Canadians that they formed separate RCAF squadrons, and so later did men from other countries, such as the Poles and French.

Nineteen members of an Army detachment were arrested on pot charges at a Nike Hercules base on Mount Gleason, overlooking Los Angeles. One of them had been caught drying a large amount of marijuana on land belonging to the U.S. Forest Service. Three enlisted men at a Nike Hercules base in San Rafael, California, were removed from guard duty for psychiatric reasons. One of them had been charged with pointing a loaded rifle at the head of a sergeant. Although illegal drugs were not involved in the case, the three men were allowed to guard the missiles, despite a history of psychiatric problems. The squadron was understaffed, and its commander feared that hippies—“people from the Haight-Ashbury”—were trying to steal nuclear weapons.

The castle of Enysfarne was a dark and towering force that hovered over what was left of my innocence. It contained my destiny, of that I had no doubt whatsoever; a fate that threatened to wipe the blush off my face and turn me into the man my father always wanted me to be... Veronica Somerset, Dragonfly.

I sat down in the middle of the garden, where snakes could scarcely approach unseen, and leaned my back against a warm yellow pumpkin. There were some ground-cherry bushes growing along the furrows, full of fruit. I turned back the papery triangular sheaths that protected the berries and ate a few. All about me giant grasshoppers, twice as big as any I had ever seen, were doing acrobatic feats among the dried vines. The gophers scurried up and down the ploughed ground. There in the sheltered draw-bottom the wind did not blow very hard, but I could hear it singing its humming tune up on the level, and I could see the tall grasses wave. The earth was warm under me, and warm as I crumbled it through my fingers. Queer little red bugs came out and moved in slow squadrons around me. Their backs were polished vermilion, with black spots. I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.

You know Jyn Erso?” she began, because if they didn’t the rest of the story would be meaningless. “The woman who started it all and destroyed the Death Star? The first one, the real one, I mean.” “General Skywalker and Red Squadron destroyed the Death Star,” Nath said. “Skywalker fired the last shot, was all. Jyn did everything that mattered.

Alright, we’ll have 20 ‘Foxtrot’ pushups,” the SCC roared, “are you ready?” “Yes sir,” the Squadron shouted. “1,” he said, and bent down for a pushup. “Foxtrot,” we hollered, and did a pushup. “2,” he shouted and this continued with everyone being their loudest in the end. This was a kind of energy instilling act, which kept up the morale of the Squadron.

If this story were to have a moral, then I would say: “Just name a hero and I’ll prove he’s a bum.

Time to remind them that trapping a Rogue doesn't make him dead, just deadlier.

Yub, Yub, Commander. -Janson

You can’t reduce sapient lives to numbers and exchange them like credits.

Be resolved that honor is heavier than the mountains and death lighter than the feather.

Justice was the vice of bold, honorable men who died swift, stupid deaths, and vengeance was justice without the sheen of respectability.

Democracy is grinding work. Whereas family businesses and army squadrons may be ruled by fiat, democracies require negotiation, compromise, and concessions.

A word of advice to you men. Many times in your Marine Corps career you are going to feel like resigning. But don’t forget: one son of a bitch or four or five cannot ruin the Corps.

Heading into the race, the perception among political professionals and the press had been that the rival campaign squadrons were more or less evenly matched. But as the smoke cleared, a consensus quickly emerged that the Democrats had methodically been building an atomic clock while the Republicans were trifling with Tinkertoys. Chicago’s mockery of Boston was hushed but withering.

As Ariel recounted the events of her dream, two magnificent, batlike wings grew from the backs of her shoulders, stretched as if preparing to fly, then retreated back into their host. The sound heard when the wings disappear is the giggling of Alanna, who watched the event much the same way I did, in rapt wonder.

The Empire was crumbling every day. Trillions of people were free because of the Rebellion. Because she was a general running a battle group instead of a cell leader flying the Ghost on one mad assignment or another. Still, she missed her old crew. Her family. She wished they all could have been with her aboard the Lodestar.

Early June, Providence, Rhode Island, the sun up for almost two hours already, lighting up the pale bay and the smokestacks of the Narragansett Electric factory, rising like the sun on the Brown University seal emblazoned on all the pennants and banners draped up over campus, a sun with a sagacious face, representing knowledge. But this sun--the one over Providence--was doing the metaphorical sun one better, because the founders of the university, in their Baptist pessimism, had chosen to depict the light of knowledge enshrouded by clouds, indicating that ignorance had not yet been dispelled from the human realm, whereas the actual sun was just now fighting its way through cloud cover, sending down splintered beams of light and giving hope to the squadrons of parents, who'd been soaked and frozen all weekend, that the unseasonable weather might not ruin the day's activities.

Gabe taps Michi on the shoulder. “I can understand any hesitation on your part, Michika. If you wish, you can stay behind with your family …” “Nuh-uh, not a chance!” She brushes Gabe’s hand off of her shoulder. “If my best friend’s gonna be risking her life to kick New Empire ass, then I wanna be right there with her in my asskickin’ boots.

The challenge of a journalist is to condense a thousand thoughts into a single sound bite. The challenge of an author is to place a simple idea on a canvas as infinite as your imagination. No doubt about it. I have the easier job.

Wars, wars, wars': reading up on the region I came across one moment when quintessential Englishness had in fact intersected with this darkling plain. In 1906 Winston Churchill, then the minister responsible for British colonies, had been honored by an invitation from Kaiser Wilhelm II to attend the annual maneuvers of the Imperial German Army, held at Breslau. The Kaiser was 'resplendent in the uniform of the White Silesian Cuirassiers' and his massed and regimented infantry... reminded one more of great Atlantic rollers than human formations. Clouds of cavalry, avalanches of field-guns and—at that time a novelty—squadrons of motor-cars (private and military) completed the array. For five hours the immense defilade continued. Yet this was only a twentieth of the armed strength of the regular German Army before mobilization. Strange to find Winston Churchill and Sylvia Plath both choosing the word 'roller,' in both its juggernaut and wavelike declensions, for that scene.

Captain Piltchard and Captain Wren, the inoffensive joint squadron operations officers, were both mild, soft-spoken men of less than middle height who enjoyed flying combat missions and begged nothing more of life and Colonel Cathcart than the opportunity to continue flying them. They had flown hundreds of combat missions and wanted to fly hundreds more. They assigned themselves to every one. Nothing so wonderful as war had ever happened to them before; and they were afraid it might never happen to them again.

Actually, using the Daleks would be a masterstroke. Everyone loves Doctor Who - who wouldn't be thrilled by the sight of a real-life Dalek squadron rolling down the high street, glinting in the sun? The sheer excitement would genuinely make the accompanying loss of liberty seem worthwhile. To liven things up even more, our rasping pepperpot overlords would be colour-coded. Blue Daleks would deal with minor infractions, and would spend most of their time issuing warnings and administering minor shocks - but they'd also be chummy and approachable, and willing to pose for photographs with your nephew. Red Daleks, on the other hand, would be emotionless killing machines. Imagine the atmosphere outside a pub on a hot summer's day: a Red Dalek trundles past, and the convivial hubbub suddenly fades to a whisper. Everyone stiffens. And then he turns the corner and a communal sigh of relief goes up, and the drinking continues and the jukebox plays louder and louder... community spirit lives again. Admit it: it'd be fantastic.

Permission to speak, sir?" the chief of boat of the Alexandria said. "When do you ask, COB?" Vancel replied. "Sure." "Hate the situation that we're in, sir," the COB said. "Really getting to hate fish. Don't want to think about what's happened ashore, sir. But this Wolf Squadron thing is like the best soap opera ever." "And turns out she got knocked up by sitting where the guy had spewed in his sleep!" "No fuckin' way!" "That has got to be the lamest excuse ever! 'No, seriously, Mom, I got pregnant from a life raft deck!

I have never been brave, but most of the things for which I had been given credit for bravery were nothing but daredevil stunts. I was trying to build up my own ego, trying to imitate the bravery of people I had read about or had been told about in the years gone by.

The answer," the torture droid said, "is simple: The Emperor who ordered Operation Cinder, who oversaw countless genocides and massacres and created an Empire where torture droids were in common use, was not a man of secret brilliance and foresight. "He was a cruel man. Petty and spiteful in the most ordinary of ways; and spiteful men do spiteful things. Whatever else he intended, that is the root of it all.

Two battleships assigned to the training squadron had been at sea on maneuvers in heavy weather for several days. I was serving on the lead battleship and was on watch on the bridge as night fell. The visibility was poor with patchy fog, so the captain remained on the bridge keeping an eye on all activities.    Shortly after dark, the lookout on the wing of the bridge reported, “Light, bearing on the starboard bow.”    “Is it steady or moving astern?” the captain called out.    Lookout replied, “Steady, captain,” which meant we were on a dangerous collision course with that ship.    The captain then called to the signalman, “Signal that ship: We are on a collision course, advise you change course 20 degrees.”    Back came a signal, “Advisable for you to change course 20 degrees.”    The captain said, “Send, I’m a captain, change course 20 degrees.”    “I’m a seaman second class,” came the reply. “You had better change course 20 degrees.”    By that time, the captain was furious. He spat out, “Send, I’m a battleship. Change course 20 degrees.”    Back came the flashing light, “I’m a lighthouse.”    We changed course.

He had been living in a down-town Y.M.C.A., but when he quit the task of making sow-ear purses out of sows' ears, he moved up-town and went to work immediately as a reporter for The Sun. He kept at this for a year, doing desultory writing on the side, with little success, and then one day an infelicitous incident peremptorily closed his newspaper career. On a February afternoon he was assigned to report a parade of Squadron A. Snow threatening, he went to sleep instead before a hot fire, and when he woke up did a smooth column about the muffled beats of the horses' hoofs in the snow… This he handed in. Next morning a marked copy of the paper was sent down to the City Editor with a scrawled note: "Fire the man who wrote this." It seemed that Squadron A had also seen the snow threatening—had postponed the parade until another day. A week later he had begun "The Demon Lover."… In

On Growing Old Be with me, Beauty, for the fire is dying; My dog and I are old, too old for roving. Man, whose young passion sets the spindrift flying, Is soon too lame to march, too cold for loving. I take the book and gather to the fire, Turning old yellow leaves; minute by minute The clock ticks to my heart. A withered wire, Moves a thin ghost of music in the spinet. I cannot sail your seas, I cannot wander Your cornland, nor your hill-land, nor your valleys Ever again, nor share the battle yonder Where the young knight the broken squadron rallies. Only stay quiet while my mind remembers The beauty of fire from the beauty of embers. Beauty, have pity! for the strong have power, The rich their wealth, the beautiful their grace, Summer of man its sunlight and its flower. Spring-time of man, all April in a face. Only, as in the jostling in the Strand, Where the mob thrusts, or loiters, or is loud, The beggar with the saucer in his hand Asks only a penny from the passing crowd, So, from this glittering world with all its fashion, Its fire, and play of men, its stir, its march, Let me have wisdom, Beauty, wisdom and passion, Bread to the soul, rain when the summers parch. Give me but these, and though the darkness close Even the night will blossom as the rose.

By eroding their sense of shame we've made immorality normal, not only in the world but also in the forbidden squadron. ...their new Christian friends recommended some of the movies Fletcher had been wondering if he should now avoid. I was delighted one of them said, "This is a great movie--only one sex scene, and the f-word's only used a few times." 'Titanic' is one of my favorites. How many Christian young people have watched it in their own homes? Think of it, Squaltaint. Suppose someone in the youth group said to the boys, 'There's an attractive girl down the street. Let's get together and go look through her window and watch her undress and lay back on a couch and pose naked from the waist up. Then this girl and her boyfriend will get in a car and have sex--let's get as close as we can and listen to them and watch the windows steam up.' The strategy would never work. They'd know immediately it was wrong. But you can get them to do exactly the same thing by using a television instead of a window. That's all is takes! Think of it, Squaltaint. Every day Christians across the country, including many squadron leaders, watch women and men undress and commit acts of fornication and adultery the Enemy calls an abomination. We've made them a bunch of voyeurs! Churches full of peeping toms.

I didn’t know what he was yelling about, but he said he would handle it, and I was to have you report IMMEDIATELY. He also said I could smell when you were coming because you would be like a bourbon factory. He said you were a bull-necked, flat-nosed son of a bitch who would have no cap or raincoat because you didn’t have brains enough to wear them.

Amongst these brave soldiers was Dfr Vir Singh (Retd) of 4 Horse, whose flesh was charred off his bones by a Cobra missile that hit his tank. He spoke with great regard for his Squadron Commander Maj Bhupinder Singh, MVC, who too was severely burned in the same attack after they had destroyed many tanks in the Battle of Phillora. When the then Prime Minister of India Lal Bahadur Shastri visited a dying Maj Singh in the Army Base Hospital, Delhi, the officer had tears in his eyes. A touched Shastri told Maj Singh that tears didn’t become a brave soldier like him. Maj Singh replied, ‘Sir, I’m not pained because of any injury. I’m anguished that a soldier is not being able to salute his Prime Minister.

nothing, absolutely nothing, scares an alcoholic—not even death.

The fundamentalist (or, more accurately, the beleaguered individual who comes to embrace fundamentalism) cannot stand freedom. He cannot find his way into the future, so he retreats to the past. He returns in imagination to the glory days of his race and seeks to reconstitute both them and himself in their purer, more virtuous light. He gets back to basics. To fundamentals. Fundamentalism and art are mutually exclusive. There is no such thing as fundamentalist art. This does not mean that the fundamentalist is not creative. Rather, his creativity is inverted. He creates destruction. Even the structures he builds, his schools and networks of organization, are dedicated to annihilation, of his enemies and of himself. But the fundamentalist reserves his greatest creativity for the fashioning of Satan, the image of his foe, in opposition to which he defines and gives meaning to his own life. Like the artist, the fundamentalist experiences Resistance. He experiences it as temptation to sin. Resistance to the fundamentalist is the call of the Evil One, seeking to seduce him from his virtue. The fundamentalist is consumed with Satan, whom he loves as he loves death. Is it coincidence that the suicide bombers of the World Trade Center frequented strip clubs during their training, or that they conceived of their reward as a squadron of virgin brides and the license to ravish them in the fleshpots of heaven? The fundamentalist hates and fears women because he sees them as vessels of Satan, temptresses like Delilah who seduced Samson from his power. To combat the call of sin, i.e., Resistance, the fundamentalist plunges either into action or into the study of sacred texts. He loses himself in these, much as the artist does in the process of creation. The difference is that while the one looks forward, hoping to create a better world, the other looks backward, seeking to return to a purer world from which he and all have fallen.

Ariel sighed. “How are you not self-conscious about that?” Kitty chuckled. “Hey, I got used to it in a hurry, and I kind of like the side perks. I always wanted to … y’know, be superhuman, do some of the things I’ve been able to do with this setup.” She curled her tail up to take it in her hands. “Now I know how the guys feel, having something extra in your pants tends to be awkward after a while.

A villain. The enemy. Sandor watched Sophie tug on her eyelashes—her nervous habit, back in full force. “Nothing is going to happen,” he promised, tucking her blond hair behind her ear with a surprisingly gentle touch for a seven-foot-tall goblin warrior. It definitely helped having Sandor back at her side—especially after almost losing him during the battle on Mount Everest. And Sandor wasn’t the only goblin at Foxfire anymore. Each of the six wings in the main campus building had been assigned its own patrol, with two additional squadrons keeping watch over the sprawling grounds. The Council had also added security throughout the Lost Cities. They had to. The ogres were still threatening war. And in the three weeks since Sophie and her friends had returned from hiding with the Black Swan, the Neverseen had scorched the main gate of the Sanctuary and broken into the registry in Atlantis. Sophie could guess what the rebels had hoped to gain from the elves’ secret animal preserve—they obviously didn’t know that she’d convinced the Council to set the precious alicorns free. But the registry attack remained a mystery. The Councillors kept careful records on every elf ever born, and no one would tell her if any files had been altered or stolen. A bubble popped on Sophie’s head, and Sandor caught the box of Prattles that had been hovering inside. “If you’re going to eat these, I should check them first,” he told her. Sandor’s wide, flat nose scented no toxins in the nutty candy, but he insisted on examining the pin before handing them over. Every box of Prattles came with a special collectible inside, and in the past, the Black

In the eyes of his contemporaries, Caesar was cast in the mold of a Catilina: bright, radical and scandalous. He had already acquired an exotic reputation. His adventures during his teens when he had been on the run from Sulla had been only the start. In his twenties, like many young upper-class Romans, he had gone soldiering in Asia and won the Civic Crown—an award analogous to the Medal of Honor—for conspicuous gallantry in action. He may also have had a brief love affair with the King of Bithynia, but it did not inhibit his vigorous sex life among the wives of his contemporaries back in Rome. A Senator once referred to him in a speech as “every woman’s man and every man’s woman” and for the rest of Caesar’s career he had to endure much heavy-handed jocularity about the incident. A few years later Caesar was captured by pirates, who were endemic in the Mediterranean; while waiting for his ransom to arrive he got onto friendly terms with his captors, but warned them that he would return and have them crucified. They thought he was joking. They were not the last to underestimate Caesar’s determination and regret it. AS soon as he was free, he raised a squadron on his own initiative, tracked down the pirates and executed them, just as he had promised.

I have to tell you, Major, if we don't get these bombs and stop this Jap fleet, they're gonna come in here and bomb the hell out of this place and maybe recapture it. Then their planes will be dropping these bombs on you. I've gotta have these bombs, sir, or we'll have a disaster on our hands.' Lupo asked who the major's superior was. The Army officer mentioned a colonel who stationed out toward the front. 'He's out fighting a war, and I'm not going to bother him." 'Well," Lupo said, "that's just too bad." The pilot pulled out his service revolver and pointed it at the major. Then Lupo handed the pistol to his radioman, Earl Gifford, instructing the flabbergasted aircrewman to hold the Army officer at bay. Lupo climbed into the cockpit of his plane and hailed the Fanshaw Bay on the radio. His fellow pilots from VC-68 and other Taffy 3 squadrons were already inbound

Later than usual one summer morning in 1984, Zoyd Wheeler drifted awake in sunlight through a creeping fig that hung in the window, with a squadron of blue jays stomping around on the roof. In his dreams these had been carrier pigeons from someplace far across the ocean, landing and taking off again one by one, each bearing a message for him, but none of whom, light pulsing in the wings, he could ever quite get to in time. He understood it to be another deep nudge from forces unseen, almost surely connected with the letter that had come along with his latest mental-disability check, reminding him that unless he did something publicly crazy before a date now less than a week away, he would no longer qualify for benefits. He groaned out of bed. Somewhere down the hill hammers and saws were busy and country music was playing out of somebody's truck radio. Zoyd was out of smokes.

British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the world war by their prowess and their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

The squadron of men-of-war and transports was collected, the commodore’s flag hoisted, and the expedition sailed with most secret orders, which, as usual, were as well known to the enemy, and everybody in England, as they were to those by whom they were given. It is the characteristic of our nation, that we scorn to take any unfair advantage, or reap any benefit, by keeping our intentions a secret. We imitate the conduct of that English tar, who, having entered a fort, and meeting a Spanish officer without his sword, being providentially supplied with two cut-lasses himself, immediately offered him one, that they might engage on fair terms. The idea is generous, but not wise. But I rather imagine that this want of secrecy arises from all matters of importance being arranged by cabinet councils. In the multitude of counsellors there may be wisdom, but there certainly is not secrecy. Twenty men have probably twenty wives, and it is therefore twenty to one but the secret transpires through that channel. Further, twenty men have twenty tongues; and much as we complain of women not keeping secrets, I suspect that men deserve the odium of the charge quite as much, if not more, than women do. On the whole, it is forty to one against secrecy, which, it must be acknowledged, are long odds. On the arrival of the squadron at the point of attack, a few more days were thrown away,—probably upon the same generous principle of allowing the enemy sufficient time for preparation.

He suddenly felt the intense sad loveliness of being as being, apart from right or wrong: that, indeed, the mere fact of being was the ultimate right. He began to love the land under him with a fierce longing, not because it was good or bad, but because it was: because of the shadows of the corn stocks on a golden evening; because the sheep’s tails would rattle when they ran, and the lambs, sucking, would revolve their tails in little eddies; because the clouds in daylight would surge it into light and shade; because the squadrons of green and golden plover, worming in pasture fields, would advance in short, unanimous charges, head to wind; because the spinsterish herons, who keep their hair up with fish bones according to David Garnett, would fall down in a faint if a boy could stalk them and shout before he was seen; because the smoke from homesteads was a blue beard straying into heaven; because the stars were brighter in puddles than in the sky; because there were puddles, and leaky gutters, and dung hills with poppies on them; because the salmon in the rivers suddenly leaped and fell; because the chestnut buds, in the balmy wind of spring, would jump out of their twigs like jacks-in-boxes, or like little spectres holding up green hands to scare him; because the jackdaws, building, would hang in the air with branches in their mouths, more beautiful than any ark-returning dove; because, in the moonlight there below, God’s greatest blessing to the world was stretched, the silver gift of sleep.

There is one fierceness of Jews that I like a whole lot", the Texan told her one night, during a discussion of the Virginal intercessions and saintly go-betweens, of the baroque hierarchy of priests and monsignors and bishops and archbishops and cardinals and pope that lay between God and the Catholic soul, which Sofia found pointless and mystifying. "Most people, no, they don't like to go straight to the top, not really. They need to sidle up to a proposition, come at the thing a little off-center. They feel better with a chain of command," D.W. said, an old Marine squadron commander whose years in the Jesuit order had done nothing to diminish his tendency to think in military terms. "Got a problem, you ask the sergeant. Sergeant might go to a captain he knows. Most folks would have a hell of a time getting up the nerve to bang on the general's office door, even if he was the nicest fella in the world. Catholicism makes allowances for that in human beings." ..."But the children of Abraham? They look God straight in the face. Praise, Argue! Dicker, complain. Takes a lot of guts to deal with the Almighty like that.

Berlin. November 18, 1917. Sunday. I think Grosz has something demonic in him. This new Berlin art in general, Grosz, Becher, Benn, Wieland Herzfelde, is most curious. Big city art, with a tense density of impressions that appears simultaneous, brutally realistic, and at the same time fairy-tale-like, just like the big city itself, illuminating things harshly and distortedly as with searchlights and then disappearing in the glow. A highly nervous, cerebral, illusionist art, and in this respect reminiscent of the music hall and also of film, or at least of a possible, still unrealized film. An art of flashing lights with a perfume of sin and perversity like every nocturnal street in the big city. The precursors are E.T.A. Hoffmann, Breughel, Mallarmé, Seurat, Lautrec, the futurists: but in the density and organization of the overwhelming abundance of sensation, the brutal reality, the Berliners seem new to me. Perhaps one could also include Stravinsky here (Petrushka). Piled-up ornamentation each of which expresses a trivial reality but which, in their sum and through their relations to each other, has a thoroughly un-trivial impact. All round the world war rages and in the center is this nervous city in which so much presses and shoves, so many people and streets and lights and colors and interests: politics and music hall, business and yet also art, field gray, privy counselors, chansonettes, and right and left, and up and down, somewhere, very far away, the trenches, regiments storming over to attack, the dying, submarines, zeppelins, airplane squadrons, columns marching on muddy streets, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, victories; Riga, Constantinople, the Isonzo, Flanders, the Russian Revolution, America, the Anzacs and the poilus, the pacifists and the wild newspaper people. And all ending up in the half-darkened Friedrichstrasse, filled with people at night, unconquerable, never to be reached by Cossacks, Gurkhas, Chasseurs d'Afrique, Bersaglieris, and cowboys, still not yet dishonored, despite the prostitutes who pass by. If a revolution were to break out here, a powerful upheaval in this chaos, barricades on the Friedrichstrasse, or the collapse of the distant parapets, what a spark, how the mighty, inextricably complicated organism would crack, how like the Last Judgment! And yet we have experienced, have caused precisely this to happen in Liège, Brussels, Warsaw, Bucharest, even almost in Paris. That's the world war, all right.

Like the V-1, the V-2, dubbed Big Ben, would have little military impact; according to official German calculations the effort invested by Berlin in the V-weapons was roughly equivalent to that of producing 24,000 fighter planes. Further, the V-2 rocket—a hundred times more expensive to build than the V-1—proved less effective than the flying bomb as a terror weapon. Not least among the reasons was the very futility of defending against a missile streaking across the heavens at Mach 5. Since they afforded no protection anyway, neither Allied antiaircraft batteries nor fighter squadrons were tied down, as they had been during the V-1 onslaught.

It was perhaps, then, not surprising that it was Colonel Beppo Schmid, not General Martini, who on 16 July submitted to Göring the principal intelligence appreciation of the RAF, which became the basis for the Luftwaffe General Staff’s plans. He underestimated the strength of squadrons, claiming they were eighteen aircraft strong, when in fact they had between twenty-two and twenty-four aircraft. He also stated that only a limited number of airfields could be considered operational with modern maintenance and supply installations, which was nonsense. He badly underestimated current aircraft production figures to the tune of about 50 per cent and claimed there was ‘little strategic flexibility’, when, in fact, Dowding’s air defence system provided exactly the opposite. The Me110, he claimed, was a superior fighter to the Hurricane. Even more glaring were the omissions. The Luftwaffe had no concept of how the air defence system worked, no concept of there being three different commands – Fighter, Coastal and Bomber – and no understanding of how repairs were organized. ‘The Luftwaffe is clearly superior to the RAF,’ he concluded, ‘as regards strength, equipment, training, command and location of bases.’7 He was correct in terms of strength only. The rest of his claims were utter twaddle. On the eve of Adlertag, Schmid further reassured the Luftwaffe General Staff that some 350 British fighters had been destroyed since the beginning of July and that they were already being shot down faster than they could be produced. In fact, up to 12 August, 181 had been destroyed and more than 700 new fighter aircraft built.8 The gulf between fact and fiction was quite startling.

The last man crossed the deck: the clinking ship’s company was dismissed, and Jack said to the signal-midshipman, ‘To Dryad: Captain repair aboard at once.’ He then turned to Rowan and said, ‘You may part company as soon as I hear from Captain Babbington whether the transports are in Cephalonia or not; then you will not lose a moment of this beautiful leading breeze. Here he is. Captain Babbington, good day to you. Are the transports in Cephalonia? Is all well?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Mr Rowan, report to the Commander-in-Chief, with my duty, that the transports are in Cephalonia, and that all is well. You need not mention the fact that you saw one of the squadron crammed with women from head to stern; you need not report this open and I may say shameless violation of the Articles of War, for that disagreeable task falls to your superiors; nor need you make any observations about floating brothels or the relaxation of discipline in the warmer eastern waters, for these observations will naturally occur to the Commander-in-Chief without your help. Now pray go aboard our prize and proceed to Malta without the loss of a minute: not all of us can spare the time to dally with the sex.’ ‘Oh sir,’ cried Babbington, as Rowan darted over the side, ‘I really must be allowed to protest – to deny – ’ ‘You will not deny that they are women, surely? I can tell the difference between Adam and Eve as quick as the next man, even if you cannot; just as I can tell the difference between an active zealous officer and a lubber that lies in port indulging his whims. It is of no use trying to impose upon me.’ ‘No, sir. But these are all respectable women.’ ‘Then why are they leering over the side like that, and making gestures?’ ‘It is only their way, sir. They are all Lesbians – ’ ‘And no doubt they are all parsons’ daughters, your cousins in the third degree, like that wench in Ceylon.’ ‘– and Lesbians always join their hands like that, to show respect.’ ‘You are becoming an authority on the motions of Greek women, it appears.’ ‘Oh sir,’ cried Babbington, his voice growing shriller still. ‘I know you do not like women aboard – ’ ‘I believe I have had occasion to mention it to you some fifty or sixty times in the last ten years.’ ‘But if you will allow me to explain – ’ ‘It would be interesting to hear how the presence of thirty-seven, no, thirty-eight young women in one of His Majesty’s sloops can be explained; but since I like some decency to be preserved on my quarterdeck, perhaps the explanation had better take place in the cabin.’ And in the cabin he said, ‘Upon my word, William, this is coming it pretty high. Thirty-eight wenches at a time is coming it pretty high.

Yossarian went to bed early for safety and soon dreamed that he was fleeing almost headlong down an endless wooden staircase, making a loud, staccato clatter with his heels. Then he woke up a little and realized someone was shooting at him with a machine gun. A tortured, terrified sob rose in his throat. His first thought was that Milo was attacking the squadron again, and he rolled off his cot to the floor and lay underneath in a trembling, praying ball, his heart thumping like a drop forge, his body bathed in a cold sweat. There was no noise of planes. A drunken, happy laugh sounded from afar. 'Happy New Year, Happy New Year!' a triumphant familiar voice shouted hilariously from high above between the short, sharp bursts of machine gun fire, and Yossarian understood that some men had gone as a prank to one of the sandbagged machine-gun emplacements Milo had installed in the hills after his raid on the squadron and staffed with his own men. Yossarian blazed with hatred and wrath when he saw he was the victim of an irresponsible joke that had destroyed his sleep and reduced him to a whimpering hulk. He wanted to kill, he wanted to murder. He was angrier than he had ever been before, angrier even than when he had slid his hands around McWatt's neck to strangle him. The gun opened fire again. Voices cried 'Happy New Year!' and gloating laughter rolled down from the hills through the darkness like a witch's glee. In moccasins and coveralls, Yossarian charged out of his tent for revenge with his .45, ramming a clip of cartridges up into the grip and slamming the bolt of the gun back to load it. He snapped off the safety catch and was ready to shoot. He heard Nately running after him to restrain him, calling his name. The machine gun opened fire once more from a black rise above the motor pool, and orange tracer bullets skimmed like low-gliding dashes over the tops of the shadowy tents, almost clipping the peaks. Roars of rough laughter rang out again between the short bursts. Yossarian felt resentment boil like acid inside him; they were endangering his life, the bastards!

I was soon discharged from the rehab center and sent back to the SAS. But the doctor’s professional opinion was that I shouldn’t military parachute again. It was too risky. One dodgy landing, at night, in full kit, and my patched-up spine could crumple. He didn’t even mention the long route marches carrying huge weights on our backs. Every SF soldier knows that a weak back is not a good opener for life in an SAS squadron. It is also a cliché just how many SAS soldiers’ backs and knees are plated and pinned together, after years of marches and jumps. Deep down I knew the odds weren’t looking great for me in the squadron, and that was a very hard pill to swallow. But it was a decision that, sooner or later, I would have to face up to. The doctors could give me their strong recommendations, but ultimately I had to make the call. A familiar story. Life is all about our decisions. And big decisions can often be hard to make. So I thought I would buy myself some time before I made it. In the meantime, at the squadron, I took on the role of teaching survival to other units. I also helped the intelligence guys while my old team were out on the ground training. But it was agony for me. Not physically, but mentally: watching the guys go out, fired up, tight, together, doing the job and getting back excited and exhausted. That was what I should have been doing. I hated sitting in an ops room making tea for intelligence officers. I tried to embrace it, but deep down I knew this was not what I had signed up for. I had spent an amazing few years with the SAS, I had trained with the best, and been trained by the best, but if I couldn’t do the job fully, I didn’t want to do it at all. The regiment is like that. To keep its edge, it has to keep focused on where it is strongest. Unable to parachute and carry the huge weights for long distances, I was dead weight. That hurt. That is not how I had vowed to live my life, after my accident. I had vowed to be bold and follow my dreams, wherever that road should lead. So I went to see the colonel of the regiment and told him my decision. He understood, and true to his word, he assured me that the SAS family would always be there when I needed it. My squadron gave me a great piss-up, and a little bronze statue of service. (It sits on my mantelpiece, and my boys play soldiers with it nowadays.) And I packed my kit and left 21 SAS forever. I fully admit to getting very drunk that night.

I clutch to William’s hand. “I can do this.” He nods and pulls me tight into his arms. “I know you can. I believe in you.” I hug him tightly. I don’t want to lose this … I don’t want this to change anything; I still want to love this man when this is over. “Take care of the others.” He whispers in my ear. “I will.” He picks me up and kisses me, deeply and desperately, for a long time. When we finally release our lip lock, we’re both in tears. His voice is barely a whisper. “I love you, Alanna.” I stroke his cheek. “I love you.” It’s the first time we’ve both said it out loud at the same time. Something about that makes me feel very hopeful, despite the circumstances.

I soon had an occasion to apply what I had learned from Feller. The Yom Kippur War broke out in 1973, and my only significant contribution to the war effort was to advise high officers in the Israeli Air Force to stop an investigation. The air war initially went quite badly for Israel, because of the unexpectedly good performance of Egyptian ground-to-air missiles. Losses were high, and they appeared to be unevenly distributed. I was told of two squadrons flying from the same base, one of which had lost four planes while the other had lost none. An inquiry was initiated in the hope of learning what it was that the unfortunate squadron was doing wrong. There was no prior reason to believe that one of the squadrons was more effective than the other, and no operational differences were found, but of course the lives of the pilots differed in many random ways, including, as I recall, how often they went home between missions and something about the conduct of debriefings. My advice was that the command should accept that the different outcomes were due to blind luck, and that the interviewing of the pilots should stop. I reasoned that luck was the most likely answer, that a random search for a nonobvious cause was hopeless, and that in the meantime the pilots in the squadron that had sustained losses did not need the extra burden of being made to feel that they and their dead friends were at fault.

I built, of blocks, a town three hundred thousand strong, whose avenues were paved with a wine-colored rug and decorated by large leaves outlined inappropriately in orange, and on this leafage I'd often park my Tootsie Toy trucks, as if on pads of camouflage, waiting their deployment against catastrophes which included alien invasions, internal treachery, and world war. It was always my intention, and my conceit, to use up, in the town's construction, every toy I possessed: my electronic train, of course, the Lincoln Logs, old kindergarten blocks—their deeply incised letters always a problem—the Erector set, every lead soldier that would stand (broken ones were sent to the hospital), my impressive array of cars, motorcycles, tanks, and trucks—some with trailers, some transporting gas, some tows, some dumps—and my squadrons of planes, my fleet of ships, my big and little guns, an undersized group of parachute people (looking as if one should always imagine them high in the sky, hanging from threads), my silversided submarines, along with assorted RR signs, poles bearing flags, prefab houses with faces pasted in their windows, small boxes of a dozen variously useful kinds, strips of blue cloth for streams and rivers, and glass jars for town water towers, or, in a pinch, jails. In time, the armies, the citizens, even the streets would divide: loyalties, friendships, certainties, would be undermined, the city would be shaken by strife; and marbles would rain down from formerly friendly planes, steeples would topple onto cars, and shellfire would soon throw aggie holes through homes, soldiers would die accompanied by my groans, and ragged bands of refugees would flee toward mountain caves and other chairs and tables.

3 INCIDENT IN THE ENGLISH CHANNEL Not long afterwards, a Belgian ferry, the Oudenbourg, was steaming its way from Ostende to Ramsgate. In the straits of Dover the duty officer noticed that half a mile south of its usual course there was something going on in the water. He could not be sure that there was no-one drowning there and so he ordered a change of course down to where the perturbance was taking place. Two hundred passengers on the windward side of the ship were shown a very strange spectacle: in some places a vertical jet of water shot out from the surface, and in some of those vertical jets there could be seen something like a black body thrown up with it; the surface of the sea for one or two hundred yards all around was tossing and seething wildly while, from the depths, a loud rattling and humming could be heard. "It was as if there was a small volcano erupting under the sea." As the Oudenbourg slowly approached the place an enormous wave rose about ten yards ahead of it and a terrible noise thundered out like an explosion. The entire ship was lifted violently and the deck was showered with a rain of water that was nearly boiling hot; and landing on the deck with the water was a strong black body which writhed and let out a sharp loud scream; it was a newt that had been injured and burnt. The captain ordered the ship full steam astern so that the ship would not steam straight into the middle of this turbulent Hell; but the water all around had also begun to erupt and the surface of the sea was strewn with pieces of dismembered newts. The ship was finally able to turn around and it fled northwards as fast as possible. Then there was a terrible explosion about six hundred yards to the stern and a gigantic column of water and steam, perhaps a hundred yards high, shot out of the sea. The Oudenbourg set course for Harwich and sent out a radio warning in all directions: "Attention all shipping, attention all shipping! Severe danger on Ostende-Ramsgate lane. Underwater explosion. Cause unknown. All shipping advised avoid area!" All this time the sea was thundering and boiling, almost as if military manoeuvres had been taking place under the water; but apart from the erupting water and steam there was nothing to see. From both Dover and Calais, destroyers and torpedo boats set out at full steam and squadrons of military aircraft flew to the site of the disturbance; but by the time they got there all they found was that the surface was discoloured with something like a yellow mud and covered with startled fish and newts that had been torn to pieces. At first it was thought that a mine in the channel must have exploded; but once the shores on both sides of the Straits of Dover had been ringed off with a chain of soldiers and the English prime-minister had, for the fourth time in the history of the world, interrupted his Saturday evening and hurried back to London, there were those who thought the incident must be of extremely serious international importance. The papers carried some highly alarming rumours, but, oddly enough, this time remained far from the truth; nobody had any idea that Europe, and the whole world with it, stood for a few days on the brink of a major war. It was only several years later that a member of the then British cabinet, Sir Thomas Mulberry, failed to be re-elected in a general election and published his memoirs setting out just what had actually happened; but by then, though, nobody was interested.