Evening star., 1939-01-16

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the Nazi commander and set up q
military dictatorship with Reedly as
sort of Napoleon. Make that clear
The Group has taken control and
the situation is well in hand. There
was brief struggle in which World
Marshal Reedly and most of the
General Staff of both armies were
killed. and also a certain number
OF officers of lower rank. orderlies
and other attendants. Full lists of
casualties, which amount in all to
only about 300, will be publisher
later. You need not give particulars
of the fighting. The air force has be-
haved with answering loyalty to
the Common World Cause and the
armies have fraternized and ac-
claim the World Directorate.
Rud had decided to call himself
Master World Director, and no
body disputed the title.
Dawn found him still working
He had had repeated injections of
strychnine and he seemed inde-
fatigably active. Bodisham had
come to him from Sloten and was
enormously resourceful.
World Is Stunned.
A little after sunrise Rud broke of
to eat. He and Bodisham and Olders
swallowed eggs beaten up in rum and
milk by way of breakfast.
Thirp came from Stockholm about
10 o'clock to report on Bellacourt's S
state of mind. Bellacourt was all
right. "You have been working"
said Thirp.
And you?"
I've been getting reports from
all over the world. It's been like
firing an unexpected pistol in a
drawing room. They're stunned
But they are going to accept it.
Generally"
"There'll be trouble"
'The works only beginning" said
Thirp. But they will take it-they
will take it."
We'll, it's here we begin the real
World Revolution" said Rud, rub
bing his jaded face to refresh him
self. Here and now. All the rest
has been just preparation, just get
ting grip. Now right away we
have to set to work stamping out
this poison they call Federation.
1t is separatism trying to get back
disguised as union. This is only
the first outbreak. Peedlys are a
prolific family. He's got brothers.
cousins. all sorts of them. Every ma
tion. Black Reedlys there are; red
and yellow. All over the world there
will be every sort of resistance to a
World Common Law. All over the
world fellows saying: Now is my
chance
Fear of War Lifted.
Directly the fear of war is lifted,
everywhere the old things will flame
up again. Trust my prophetic soul.
All the Old World people who were
scared into silence for a time, will
be coming back, leaping, crawling,
flying in a gale of hope-like sparks,
like burning twigs and branches. It
will be like beating out heath fires
in sultry weather. But we've got to
beat and stamp now until the world
is one for ever. -"
Because, you see," he said, with
sudden swoop from rhetoric to
reality, nothing else is possible for
us now. This is the way we have
to CO. the only way. If we falter-."
"We are shot," said Thirp.
He reflected. "Reedly would have
shot you, anyhow" he said.
"And you," said Rud.
He went on working without sleep
until nightfall. Then Chiffan, who
had arrived in the afternoon, afec-
tionately masterful almost in the old
fashion, carried him off to a chateau
some miles behind the lines and put
him to bed. He slept for 20 hours.
He was not told of the death Of
Steenhold for some days. He heard
the bad news manfully at last.
Rotten luck" said Rud. Poor
old Steenhcld!" and never spoke Of
him again.
Scientific Endorsement.
In the next two crowded years
Rud, with Bodisham perpetually at
his elbow. and Thirp going to and
fro on the earth, struggled to make
that days victory real and to secure
the absolute dominance of the Com
mon World State against a vast
complex of antagonisms, insubordi-
nations ,inertias, apathies, unantici-
pated administrative difficulties,
physical difficulties imperfectly fore
seen and sheer exhausting intri-
cacies
For the bare idea of a Common
World State there was now vast
majority of mankind, but directly it
was defined as positive reorganiZa-
ton of human affairs, as the estab-
ishment of a common economic
system, a common education, a COM
mon transport system, free move
ment about the world, involving the
rupture of a thousand boundaries
and readjustment of the daily
routines of the great majority of
lives ,resistances began and grew.
Mankind was quite ready to accept
peace, but not to seek peace and
ensue it.
A great and intricate warfare in
the human imagination had fol-
lowed the obliteration of Reedly, at
tempts to explain, attempts to COM
pei, misrepresentation. denigrations,