General Beauregard Courtney sat under the open-sided tent that was his field headquarters and stretched long legs under the flimsy table. He gazed morosely out toward Tullahoma in the north, where the trenches stretched endlessly from east to west and only an occasional artillery shell broke the quiet of the battlefield. Stalemate.
"I thought trench warfare went out with World War I," he growled to his executive officer.
"No, sir. Apparently not, sir," replied Colonel Smithson correctly, not interrupting his preparation of tomorrow's orders.
Stalemate. The Northern armies and the Southern armies had collided with great carnage on that battlefield. Fighting had swayed back and forth for weeks, and at last had settled down to a stubborn holding action by both sides.
That had been months ago. Now trenches and fortifications and tank traps extended across southern Tennessee from the Cumberlands to the Mississippi. Occasional offensives came to naught. Only the planes of both sides swept daily over the lines, bombarding the rear areas, reducing the cities of Tennessee to rubble.
Beauregard toyed with a pencil and listened idly to the news over the little radio at his elbow. It was a Nashville station, and Nashville was held by the North, but he had learned how to discount the news from the battlefront.
"... And our planes destroyed thirteen Rebel tanks and an ammunition depot in a mission near Lexington," the announcer was saying. "A gunboat duel in the Mississippi River near Dyersburg was broken off after severe casualties were inflicted on the Rebel crew. Our armored troops have advanced farther into the Texas Panhandle.
"Wait. There's a flash coming in...."
There was a momentary pause. Beauregard bent his ear to the radio. Colonel Smithson looked up, listening.
"My God!" cried the announcer in a shaky voice. "This flash ... a hydrogen bomb has exploded in New York City!"
Beauregard surged to his feet, upsetting the table. The radio crashed to the ground. The other men in the tent were standing, aghast.
"It isn't ours!" cried Beauregard, his face grey. "It's a Russian bomb! It must be...!"
The voice on the fallen radio was shouting, excited, almost hysterical.
"... The heart of the city wiped out.... Number of dead not estimated yet, but known to be high.... Great fires raging.... Radioactive fallout spreading over New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania....
"Here's a bulletin: the President accuses the Rebel government of violating the pact not to use large nuclear weapons. Retaliatory action has already been initiated....
"Here's another flash: Detroit and Chicago have been H-bombed! My God, has the world gone mad? There's a report, unconfirmed, that the Detroit bombers came from the north...."
"They can't believe we did it!" muttered Beauregard. All the men in the tent, irrespective of rank, were clustered around the radio. No one thought to pick it up from the ground.
A staff car drove in from the south and rocked to a stop in front of the headquarters tent. Beauregard hardly noticed it until Piquette got out, followed by a slight, grey-haired Negro man in civilian clothes.
Beauregard strode out of the tent. The car radio was on loud, and the same announcer was babbling over it.
"Quette, what are you doing out here?" he demanded.
"Gard, this is Adjaha, a friend of mine," she said hurriedly. "I couldn't wait for you to come back to town tonight. I had to get him out to see you before it was too late."
"Dammit, it is too late," he growled. "It's too late for anything. Haven't you been listening to that damn radio?"
"This is extremely important, General," said Adjaha in a mellow voic............