no longer a
deterrent---that many men with strength and good fortune he did not
possess, would have faded and given up long before. And he knew also,
for all his introspection, that he BELONGED on that bridge, in that
fight. HE WAS NOT A QUITTER OR A LOSER! Like a savage wolf defending
its fallen mate he remained there, as rationality slipped farther and
farther from sight, till in the end he truly was a wolf, as the hyenas
around him lunged ravening about the helpless form of his wife, which
he alone defended.

And this feeling of desperate and unyielding righteousness communicated
itself not to him alone, or to the men who served under him. In those
late hours all the Coalition felt it, and the more unattainable victory
seemed, the more bitterly they steeled themselves to attain it. The
Belgians and Swiss began to waver, and at last the Soviet battleships
moved in.

The question had finally been answered. The field of battle and the
Islands beyond, belonged to those who had wanted them more desperately.

*

When the matter was clearly in hand, and those Alliance vessels which
could not flee had surrendered, Captain Brunner turned the helm back
over to his subordinates, placed his destroyer group (what remained of
it) under the command of Col. Liebenstein, and retired to his quarters.
Taking a sleeping lozenge he collapsed onto the bed, where his limbs
trembled slightly and his eyes moved feebly in their sockets, until it
began to take effect. Then at last his eyelids closed, and he knew
nothing more for three hours.

He was jolted back to life by a young officer tugging urgently at his
arm. "Commander Brunner. Commander."

He rose suddenly and, between the still pronounced effect of the drug
and the liquid-shock state of his nerves, felt certain that something
terrible had happened.

"What? What is it?" The victory of so few hours before seemed not at
all a sure memory. "Have the bastards broken through?"

The officer, himself as taut and fatigued as a violin-string on which
some mad symphony had been played, had no trouble interpreting his
words. "No, Commander. It's your wife."

These words did not at first make any impression on him, since he was
sure there was some mistake. If the man had told him that the stars
had all turned black, his mind could have accepted it more easily. But
slowly his eyes narrowed upon the serious face of the adjutant.

"Where?" He had not the courag