ective. And though he tried to stop them, or at
least soften them with thoughts of his present happiness, memories
began to come back to him of the sorrow and suffering he had seen, and
of his comrades who had not survived. And from this same lofty
pinnacle, he saw with new and vivid bitterness the full insanity of war.

After all that---all the fighting, the hanging on, the despair and true
heroism, hearts breaking and breaking through..... This plethora of
human passions, pushed to their utmost limit, had not worked miracles
of unification and achievement, or even brought men to a new
understanding. There was nothing positive in any of it. All the
battles, death and anguish, had not paid their awful price for good,
but merely to resist an evil, and restore things to the way they had
already been.

How could anyone rejoice and claim victory? He saw then with
melancholy and absolute certainty that no nation anywhere, ever, gained
anything lasting from such a war. And though a personal victory might
be won, on any national or international scale this was impossible.
Human nature was not changed, and the seeds and roots of the scattered
weeds were not eradicated, but merely remained beneath the surface,
awaiting their chance to rise and reek havoc again.

And the spiritual quota was not even returned to its original starting
point. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were dead,
many more wounded, maimed, bereft or displaced. And for WHAT?

Nothing had changed.

Nothing had been accomplished.

And nothing was the same.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, whirled angrily. Seeing before him the
familiar face of Eric Dobler, a destroyer captain formerly under his
command, he tried to relax his features and his mind. But seeing the
restive sorrow in the other's face, he suddenly felt a new sense of
care and alarm.

"What is it, Eric? What's wrong?"

... "Your brother is dead. He kept asking for you, but there was no
time."

Brunner's mouth worked, but no sounds would emerge.

"He asked me to give you a message. To say..... He tried to be like
you. That he was sorry. Sorry he had failed..... He couldn't hold
them off."

Brunner hung his head in agony and shame. And the words of Joseph
Conrad sprang, so easily to his mind, seeming to sum up perfectly this
brutal sham of Man's creation. DEAR GOD.

"The horror! The horror!"

And the tears that his wife was so fond of, trickled bit