o such comfort, nor did the torment end
after five hours only.

Here the collision of forces and opposing wills was so even---the
determination of the Coalition fighters to liberate, avenge and
overthrow, the determination of the Belgians and Swiss to survive, and
not be enslaved by the Soviets---that the conviction of the one and the
desperation of the other crashed together time and time again without
any clear result. And added to the white-hot intensity of their
struggle, was the question that for thirty-six hours could not by
either side be answered: was victory still possible?

If one is cold and hard enough to perceive it, he will see that in a
truly fatalistic world there is a limit to the terror of the wretched
souls caught inside it. Always death is there as a final end to all.
But where death is not an alternative, because hope remains, where the
questions: "Will I survive? Can I still live and find peace? Or is
my very struggle in the world of flesh ended forever?" remain
unanswered, tipping first one way and then the other on the blind
scales of Justice, or Fate, or some damnable, unnamable thing.....
Here, there is horror.

The world which the existentialists present to us---where all is
meaningless, nothing is lasting, and death and mutilation of dreams
inevitable---was here, as in countless battles of flesh and blood,
rendered empty and false. For where is the terror in such a
predetermined world? Let the man who sees the black truth, end his
life and have done. As if the multitude of Life and Universe around us
could be supported by some trick of cruel gods!

The true intensity of Man's existence---real, physical,
undeniable---lies in the fact that success and victory are possible, if
like everything else in our finite lives and understanding, limited and
passing. Health, happiness and love (in varying degrees, and depending
largely on outlook) are too many times evident in those around us to
merely to say, THERE IS NO HOPE, THERE IS NO CHANCE, THERE IS NO GOD.
The man dying of terminal disease, or imprisoned without hope of escape
in a living hell not of his own creation, has the right when pain and
fear become unbearable, to give in to despair. We have not. Because
for the rest of us, the fact remains that victory and success (if the
goal is just, and based on reality) ARE possible, however terrible the
price, or the roads which lead to it.

A man is forced to ask himself, as he is b