When the dust settles and the bullets cease to fly, the battles end, and then men and women trudge slowly home, the stories of valor are told. The details begin to fade from memory, but the stories grow in excitement and importance with each repetition. Each time a child sits at the feet of her grandmother and asks with wide brown eyes, "Gramma, tell me a story about when you were a little girl" and Gramma stairs into the corner of the room for a minute or two in order to recollect her thoughts, she is transported to that place where love and pain were joined in one single moment and the world around her stood in sharp relief and she knew that she was no longer a little girl. That is not the story for small children to hear: Children wish to hear of happy, tender moments and thrilling escapades and so Gramma tells her the tale of the first time she saw enemy aircraft overhead or how she (a young Army nurse) once saved a man's life when she heard his cries in the night and quickly called the surgeon.

    These tales are true, after a fashion. Gramma was a nurse with the Army, and she did once hear a man calling in the darkness for a drink of water and a doctor. The story that Gramma tells is much embellished and told for the sake of the little girl sitting in wrapped attention on her lap. These stories grow and change and the children will remember only the most exciting details as they grow. Soon even the fictional Gramma--a modern-day Florence Nightingale--will be forgotten and the stories she told and treasured will be lost just as surely as the secrets she kept will follow her to the grave.

    This is one of those stories--the type stored and treasured in the heart of those who fought their war young and who discovered the secret beauty in that place where Love and Pain join arm in arm. The work of Propaganda agents is not glamorous and full of daring-do: it is a work most often forgotten except in ironic collections of post-war memorabilia and placed out on the coffee table to be perused by bored or inattentive guests. It isn't the work of brave and daring pilots or seamen with only one bullet in their pistol holding back an invading enemy with only their wits and a harpoon. These soldiers fought wars of ideas and words, images and symbols. With the Truth. Their war was fought in the mind and the hearts of civilians and soldiers who had found it necessary to turn their eyes away from home to a place where blood and steel met on a field of honor for the preservation of the life they had come to cherish and treasure as their own.

    The minds and artistic talent behind the images and slogans which now plaster our collective memory were fighting to win the war without bloodshed, without bombs and shattered lives. If the war could be won in the mind, then the battle on the ground was merely a formality preceding surrender and a return to peace. If the Other Guy could be convinced of the wrongness of his cause, then it was only a matter of days or hours before he willingly laid aside his spear and returned to the plowshare. If only the Dictator and the Democrat could meet and discuss the future of their respective homelands without all of this pain and loss, then the work of the Truth Squad or the Propaganda Department, or the Creative Arts Bureau would be the single most important element in the overall victory and harmonious world order to follow. Time was of the essence, and the days were counting down; but with each stroke of the pen and run of the press these creative and talented design artists and slogan writers supplied their counterparts with the materiel with which they traversed the skies and streets of enemy territory distributing their messages of freedom and victory, fluttering to in the air like autumn leaves on a frosty afternoon.

    Pierre Schuster was up early that morning. Before the War, he was never excited to stay in bed. He typically rolled out of  bed long before sunrise and made it a personal mission to run as many miles as he could before the red dawn broke the horizon. The intervening months since the Japs had caught the Navy napping at Pearl had been filled not with athlete's foot and shinsplints but with writer's block and ink stained trousers. Since the Congress had finally seen fit to declare war on both Japan and the European Axis powers, the days had begun just as early but there were no restful miles between himself and sunrise, but a long drudge sitting beneath florescent lamps around a drafting table in a smokey back room.

    Like many of the boys in his college dormitory, Pierre had never believed the war would ever cross the vast expanse posed by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. His father had told him stories of the Great War and the mindless slaughter of so many young boys. Whenever he told these stories, his eyes would glaze and his voice would go quiet and soft as a whisper. He would tell stories with his soft German accent and gentle manner and his eyes would fill with tears. He, like those who had survived the trenches and had sought a better life in the United States, had sworn that he would oppose any movement towards war in the future. Pierre's mother had been the second generation French immigrant living in Quebec when her path crossed with that of Herr Schuster and their lives had intertwined. Between the two of them, they believed that they embodied the future of world peace and harmony and they raised their four children in a strict, Roman Catholic pacifist tradition. Pierre never would have enlisted in a foreign army, nor would he have sought the honors and glories of combat. For him, the attack on Pearl Harbor and subsequent declarations of war were a death sentence on the peaceful world he'd hoped to create.

    Pierre's roommate had enlisted in the Navy in 1936, during their Junior Year at UC Berkley. He'd done it to receive a steady income and to be able to buy the family business from his grandfather. Price Barker was the only son of Cecilia Barker whose parents had run a chain of grocery stores throughout Northern California and had harbored high hopes of passing their business on to their first born son. As the fates would have it, they had raised six beautiful daughters, two of whom died in their early teens, and the youngest, Cecelia, has been the only one to have a male child. Price was the last hope of continuing the Barker family name throughout the ages as the greatest food distribution magnate in the lower Pacific Northwest. Price's decision to join the Navy had been greeted with tacit respect from his grandfather and his mother kept a picture of him in his white uniform displayed on the mantle in a place of honor.

    Price's decision to join the army had caused no small tension between them. Pierre's family had raised him to be not only a strict pacifist but he had fallen lock-step in with the America Firsters on campus in their isolationist policies. Opposing both war and involvement overseas, Pierre hadn't spoke with Price for a week before they patched things up. Price promising not to talk about work and to stop badgering Pierre to enlist with him, and Pierre promised not to host any of his pacifist friends over after a long night of drinking when they were most likely to be belligerent about Price's military career. The armistices which followed had provided them both with  much needed space in their lives to pursue their careers and finish their educations: Price with an eye towards four years of service and then a career behind a desk and Pierre hoping to pursue his art interests in an advertising agency in San Francisco, dabbling in literature and poetry on the side.

    Pearl Harbor had changed all of that. Suddenly, it wasn't a matter of the problems of other nation-states across the ocean and on continents their families had fled after the last major conflict. This was war brought to their doorsteps, bringing down the Pacific Fleet as the sun rose red over the Hawaiian skyline. The radio announcer that night had broken into muffled sobs as he recounted the casualties of that mornings massacre. Pierre had called Price that evening and the two old friend met for a drink. Price would be shipping out in the morning and the two men set aside their differences over stiff drinks and sad farewells. Price had asked Pierre if he'd given any more thought to signing up and joining the fight to bring down Tojo and the "Jap menace". Pierre told him he thought his talents were best used elsewhere and they'd said their good-byes before the gaslight glow had faded from the streets of the busy city.

    The truth of the matter was that Pierre had been recruited right out of Berkley by the United States Department of Interior. What he had begun as informational pamphlets and billboards about the hazards of poorly cooked foods, farmer's rights, and inadequate storage space had taken a drastic shift in 1939. Hitler's invasion of Poland and the subsequent fall of Paris had brought the grim prospect of another European war to the front pages of the San Francisco newspapers, and Pierre had been startled to find out that there was a movement in the government office where the USDI had their offices to push America into the war on the pretense that Europe's war (really Churchill's war) was everybody's war. Pierre had scoffed at first at the anti-German, anti-Italian rhetoric he had heard in the halls. But then in December, he had been called into his boss's office for a discussion about the future direction of his department.

    "What we need, Schuster, is to know where your loyalties lie. We know you're father's a German immigrant and your mother is French-Canadian. That makes you a wild card in our estimation. Germans across Europe and Britain have been summoned back to the Fatherland to serve the Reich. The French have capitulated and set up a puppet dictator state in Vichy. The British Empire is at war. You, son are an amalgamation of the great European conflict now being thrust upon the world. What are you going to do?"

    Pierre had been caught off guard by this. His job was to illustrate handy need-to-know manuals and advertising campaigns against spreading influenza and the importance of the dairy farmer. This wasn't a political position, regardless of its government subsidies. Nor was it part of the officially non-existent "war effort" of the United States of America. As far as Pierre knew, the country had not gone to war and the mood of the people was directly in the opposite way. If his monthly newsletter from the America First campaign had confirmed any detail about America's feelings about the conflict in Europe and Asia was that American's were firmly opposed to any intervention in someone else's war--especially that bombastic bulldog in London whose thinly veiled references to American involvement had drawn the ire of Pierre and his cronies.

    "I'm not sure I take your meaning, sir," Pierre responded. "I thought our job was to keep the public healthy and informed. I didn't realize that there was any need to be of a particular ancestry to work here. What do my mother and father have to do with any of the work you've asked me to do?"

    "It's not that simple, Schuster. We need to know where your loyalties will lie if--or when--this country decides to enter this dance with Hitler."

    Again, Pierre was confused. "Sir, I thought the policy of the American government was strictly isolationist. Surely, we won't have to make that decision. This isn't our war, after all. We have not been invaded, Paris is not in Nebraska. I fail to see how we could be brought into this Imperial grab for power by a few European powder kegs."

    "Schuster, I appreciate your innocence, but we can't afford to stick our heads in the sand about this. Like it or not, the war is coming to America. Whether it comes across the Atlantic Ocean when Hitler decides to attack our shipping or through Russia when Stalin falls and the German army crosses into North American via Alaska in order to take down the Canadian arm of the British Empire. The war is coming, Schuster, and I don't have to tell you which side the President will be on when the bullet start to fly. He's already in regular contact with Churchill and the United States, though still officially against any intervention in Europe, is more friendly to the cause of the Democratic states than it is to Hitler and Mussolini and their need for power and real estate."

    "What are you asking of me, sir?" Pierre was still startled by the direction this conversation had taken. He had been expecting a simple pat-on-the-back and a keep-up-the-good-work and then back to his drafting table. This was suddenly more sinister, more intimidating. The friendly, rotund man who had hired him and introduced him to the men and women working in the complex had suddenly shifted and those once friendly eyes were now piercing and searching him, trying him by fire to see if there remained any dross from the Old Country that needed to be melted away before his gaze. "Sir?"

    When he spoke again, his boss's words were evenly paced, chosen intentionally for maximum impact. "We have received a communication from Washington. The unspoken position of the War Department and the Joint Chiefs is now becoming spoken and official. We need to start moving this country towards a war mindset. We can't afford for Hitler or the Japanese to see us as a soft pushover. The President is already making plans for an oil embargo on the Japanese Empire and there's no secret that the White House and Downing Street (that's where the old Bulldog lives) are in constant communication regarding the plight of those besieged peoples in North Africa and the England.

    "The President needs public opinion to shift before he can approach Congress with the request to make an official declaration of war." When he paused, Pierre made to interject, but the large sausage hand across the desk held his voice in his throat. "This isn't a time for ideals, Mr. Schuster. This is a time for realism. The reality of the situation is that if the Germans and Japanese unite against Great Britain, there is nothing to stop them from making a full fledged attack against the rest of the Democracies by way of the Middle East and Australia. Let's not forget, that our neighbors to the north are loyal subjects (at least on paper) of the Crown and will make an attractive target if Hitler and Stalin decide to turn eastward and make for North American oil and ore.

    "We have been asked to begin a small, covert branch of Interior to work hand-in-hand with representatives from the armed forces on a small propaganda campaign. Before you interrupt," Pierre's jaw had dropped, "This is not a campaign to increase recruitment or arms manufacture. We're Interior, we're not a branch of military intelligence. Our task is smaller. With the last census numbers, the results of the Depression, and the sluggish recovery in jobs, food stores, and available capital, the President has asked for a campaign focused on preservation and preparation. We'll be making posters and pamphlets about canning and preserving, simple instruction manuals on kitchen gardens, and the need to cut down on fuel expenditures. When this country finally declares war, we can't afford to have the people unprepared for the hardships that will follow when we suddenly have to feed active duty soldiers and fuel tons of ships and aircraft."

    Pierre sat in stunned silence for a moment. This day had not at all turned out the way he had planned. He was trying to measure what he had just heard with what he had always believed to be true: that the United States had no business being involved in other country's conflicts, that the European powers and their imperial struggles were a relic of a time best forgotten in a brave new world of progressive ideas and evolution. It wasn't a time for reverting to caveman practices of hording food and fearing others. And yet here was his boss, a man he respected, telling him that when--not if, but when the Untied States entered the war, the people needed to be prepared. It was almost too much for him to process at once.

    He was aware of the sweat on his hands and the daze in his eyes when his boss coughed quite deliberately and broke the tension. "Yes, sir. I'm not sure what all of this means, but you can rely on me to do the job necessary to," he swallowed hard, "prepare for the war. But sir...is this really necessary? Surely we can't afford--the depression! How are American supposed to cut back and save and eat less when they've been starving for nearly a decade! Sir..." his voice trailed off and he stood up like a slow moving machine and extended his hand across the desk, "Sir, I don't know what this means, but you don't have to worry about me."

    "Schuster," his bosses voice was like a buzz saw, "I don't need to tell you that this is top secret information. Tell no one." Pierre nodded and exited the quiet office and headed down the three flights of stairs to his own work space. Sitting on the desk was a sealed, manila envelope with his name on it stamped on one side: Top Secret. Inside it he found the instructions for his first assignment.

    That had been nearly three years ago. Hitler's invasions of Poland and France were old news; the double-cross against Stalin and the Soviet Union were the subject of heated international debate; Churchill and Roosevelt met secretly (and not-so-secretly) on a regular basis now; and the US had begun a full-scale offensive against the Japanese and had troops on the ground in the British Isles, the Mediterranean, and China. The time of civic debate about the suitability of war with a foreign power had come to a close shortly after the last planes had left the Hawaiian horizon. The months between December and October had flown quickly, and Pierre Schuster found himself at work before the sunrise and home to bed long after it had set over the Pacific--over Midway Island, Guam, and the Japanese Navy still haunting the waters of the vast ocean.

    The work had been steady from late 1939 and through 1940 and '41. It wasn't until the attacks on the Bismark and two American convoy ships had failed to bring the United States into the war that the normal USDI staff were supplemented by men and women in military uniforms and a man with medals and ribbons had moved into the office next door to Pierre's boss. Then things had really begun to cook. No more simple, subtle hints at savings accounts and frugality. Now the posters, pamphlets, and publicans took on a more sinister look and a grimmer worldview. Articles on canning and gardening shared space with descriptions of Hitler's atrocities (or what was known about them) in Europe and the Middle East. The Japanese Empire became "the Enemy," "the Menace," the "Japs" and Pierre found his artwork consistently falling below the expected level of impending doom and disaster.

    Some of the others in the room enjoyed depicting Japanese soldiers abducting white women from a burning New York skyline or showing slanted eyes looming dangerously over Hawaii. Others spared no amount of gore and hatred on the page as Americans were encouraged to take a stand against "Hitler's Yellow Army". All of this made Pierre Schuster shy away from general conversation and after-hours cavorting with colleagues. He tended to keep his head down, eyes on the page, and pen in had, producing what he hoped were poignant reminders of the love of country Americans felt and the strong Patriotism which had led them through their darkest hours in the past. Typically, his work depicted George Washington gazing protectively over a young family or a strong woman, engaged in hard labor in a factory to ensure that her husband had the necessary ammunition to bring peace to the world. It wasn't his style to dredge up hate, and his worked was proof positive that there was more to be said about this conflict than just "kill Japs" or "hate Hitler".

    It wasn't until the anniversary of Pearl Harbor came around that Pierre Schuster put more than a day's work worth of thought into his weekly quota of illustrations and posters. A series of events had aligned themselves in such a way that the war was brought home to the Schuster household.

    Thanksgiving of that year, the Schuster house was vandalized by students form the high school. No one had been hurt, but his father was beside himself when he saw the hate filled messages left painted on their house. His mother had wept when she saw the plot for her Victory Garden (the first in the neighborhood) had been trampled and filled with stones. A week late when the gas rationing began, Pierre had had to find a way to get to work each day. That week he and a fellow operative (their own name for their clandestine organization) had begun work on a ride sharing poster depicting a ghostly Hitler sitting in the back seat of a car with only the driver. The warning had said in stark white letters: Hitler rides in the empty seat! Joni a ride sharing group today!

    World events moved quickly as the US Air Force struck the Italian mainland on December 4th and the details of the Beveridge Plan had been announced and made their way into Pierre's hands. It was in this plan--for a post-war welfare state--which had attracted Pierre's attention more than the winner of the Heisman Trophy or the coffee drop over the Netherlands. Pierre had gone into this work believing that war was nothing more than a grab at power by the rich who liked to bully smaller people and smaller countries into cow-towing to their might. This was something different though. As the Beveridge Report and other similar documents began to filter through government channels down to the low-level worker bees, Pierre Schuster saw this war as a chance at world restoration. Progressive politics would win out and the conservative blood lust would subside when the war ended. When the war was over, Pierre saw great modern cities rising, free education, health care for everyone, zero unemployment. This post-war utopia was something he could--and would--fight for.

    That Christmas he had been given free reign on his first assignment. Normally someone had given him the text or the guidelines for the completed work. All that was left for him was typography and the graphics. Here, though, was his first chance to create his own masterpiece from start to finish. All he had been told by the higher ups was that, due to his penchant for family oriented, patriotic themes, he was specially selected to bring the war home to children. At first he had feared this meant juvenile recruitment or inciting prejudice in the hearts of school children. He had been assured that this was not the case. Many people, it seemed, saw the war as an adults problem. Families with children in high school and college were the most interested in seeing a united front against Nazism or Japanese imperialism. The young family, families with children in grammar schools, were rated among the least engaged with the overall war effort. Pierre's assignment had been to bring the reality of Hitlerism and its dangerous policies to bear on the family with young children.

    Pierre had struggled for a week before hitting on an idea. It had come upon him almost accidentally the night of December 31st, 1942. He'd been listening to the radio in his home, the normal news bulletins highlighting the first full year of American engagement in the war. It had been a good year, if you measured goodness in death and carnage. The combined allied Navies had sunk 60 U Boats, creating safer passage at sea for supply convoys and troop movements. Rober Sullivan had become the first American to fly the Atlantic 100 times just a few days before. And now, with the close of the year, the radio announcer had asked his listeners to pause and reflect upon the year which had passed.

    "Before this year ends, Dear Listeners, let us take a moment to remember those who have fought bravely in the cause of Democracy and Freedom; who have suffered injustice and oppression at the hands of Hitler and Tojo; who have struggled to make ends meet just to receive their daily bread. Please pause in a moment of silence while we think about those families who will be sending sons and daughters off to continue the American war effort in the morning. Families who only a few months or weeks or years ago were seeing their children off to school for the first time. Let us remember these young boys and girls who were children only recently with lives full of hope and dreams of greatness in the future. These children now go off to fight a great evil, and they may never return. It is their sacrifice which keeps the shadow of Hitlerism, oppression, prejudice, and evil at bay if only for one more day."

    The radio had gone silent afterwards for a full two minutes.When the announcer came back on, he informed his listeners that it was now twelve o'clock, January 1st, 1943. He bid them good night, the radio played the Star Spangled Banner, and the signal had gone silent.  Pierre, who had sat their silently contemplating the the new year, was struck by the image of children--innocent children on the playground--holding back the shadow of Hitler and Fascism. He could see it so clearly. A young boy--no, three young boys--in paper hats and wooden swords holding back a dark, shadowy menace with single-minded vigilance. He got up and began to draw.

    He worked late into the night, crafting the scene he had seen with his mind's eye. Children, innocent and young, standing with their backs to each other, facing outward into the world. Around them crept a dark shadow. He had shaped this too look like the creeping tentacles of an octopus at first, when he realized that this wasn't the right image. He had scratched and scribbled until he came upon the solution. As the children stood in glorious sunshine, their playground and neighborhood were being enveloped by the reaching arms of the broken cross which made up the Nazi Swastika. These brave children stood alone against the coming onslaught while all around them the world fell away into darkness. He had sat back, looked at his sketches--his finished product--and wrote the caption in large letters across the top in white, piercing the darkness of the creeping symbol of hate and injustice: Don't Let the Shadow Fall.

    His work completed, he turned off the lights and went to bed. He slept late that day, only waking when his telephone had rung. His parents wishing him a Happy New Year. He returned their greeting and went to fix himself a pot of weak, war time coffee. Checking his ration card, he made a list and headed out on foot to the local grocery store. In the cold, San Francisco Bay morning, he saw children playing in stark relief against the winter-green grass of the school yard. Playing with sticks and rocks, calling out to one another the heroic feats they had just performed and the lives they had saved. He watched them play and sighed, looking to the future of a world without war--of a war to truly end all wars which would finally overthrow all injustice and hatred and unite even these children to their neighbors in bonds of lasting friendship and unity.

    Some people call him the Old Man. Some call him an old Bastard. For the general population, he was more affectionately the Bulldog. The members of the Commons called him WC or WSC when the fancy struck them. For the majority of Britons he was the Prime Minister who had spoken to them about their greatness, imbuing them with a faith in themselves that had gotten them through the worst of the Air Raids when the war began. His face had spoken to them from posters, his voice from the wireless, and his speeches were written up and published in newspapers and magazines all over the world. Winston Churchill stood irresolute against the onslaught of negative popular opinion, a hostile government, and a looming threat and dared to speak about peace and security while those in power cowered beneath the rising tide of Nazism and Hitler's succession of lies, pogroms, and violence.

    It had taken the country nearly 10 years of Churchill's official silence to enter the war. He'd been back benched and muzzled by those who were better connected, better educated, and who saw better popular approval. He'd been stonewalled, stymied, and stigmatized by the press, the crown, the ministers, and the world for so long that he'd been forced to support his wife and children through an endless stream of articles and books on subjects as varied as history, politics, and economic theory. From the dark recesses of the House of Commons, he had the audacity to look across the Channel towards the Continent and towards Hitler and call the evil spade an evil spade.

    Before Chamberlain was ousted from his seat at the head of the Government, Churchill had been unwillingly welcomed onto his war cabinet staff as First Lord of the Admiralty for the second time. Once he was finally on the Government again, he wasted no time in doggedly pursuing his intention of readying the country for a war nobody believed was coming but which every day had grown more and more ominous. Hitler had taken Austria and Czechoslovakia under his needling pinions and was making more than hostile overtures towards Poland and Eastern Europe. The time for action had come and gone time and again, and yet Winston believed that peace could be preserved and the order on the Continent could be maintained if the Democracies stood firmly against the Dictator states and refused to give into the madman's demands.

    It was in the early days, just before the invasion of France and the failure of the Maginot Line to stave off the rumbling tons of Hitlers Panzer Corps as they crossed over miles and miles of France and towards Paris through the Ardennes. WSC had finally gotten his post behind the PM once more and he was using his influence to hold back the tides of war as far as his strength and ability would allow him. He'd begun a campaign of Truth Squads in the RAF to help encourage German and occupied Sudeten peoples to take their freedom into their own hands; to stand up and resist the madness and the killing which had swept across Europe in so short a time. These RAF pilots didn't carry bombs or guns, but pamphlets--posters and playbills proclaiming the dark evils of Hitler's genocidal maneuver across the free countries of Europe. Early in the morning until late in the day when the sun's descent prohibited their flying safely any more these planes carried their propaganda payloads and dispersed their message across the fields and villages and cities of Europe.

    To no avail. The war came any way. Paris fell, and Charles de Gaulle fled a hostile government determined to submit to the oncoming German war machine. Dunkirk was besieged and evacuated. Greece fell and the bombs began to fall on London. Night after night the people cowered in bomb shelters and awaited the all clear. Day after day, work crews would sift through rubble and debris with the hope--the dread--of finding survivors and the dead to be sorted and cared for in the most appropriate manner. Children (long since evacuated to the country side, though many had found their way back to the city) were living rough through the streets of London and surrounding suburbs. The Thames was thick with filth and the sky was a toxic color of grey green in the predawn hours. The routine continued and continued with no hope nor sign of respite for anyone, including the embattled Prime Minister and his cabinet.

    The Truth brigades continued nonetheless. It was never easy, making your way to the planes each morning, finding instead of a payload of weapons and a friendly gunner a stack of leaflets and posters for the bedraggled masses beneath you. Sometimes the targets were British cities and countrysides. Simple messages of hope and freedom from a government quickly loosing its credibility with the aristocracy. Other times there were scathing indictments of quisling French or mad Huns. Increasingly there was news of the United States' involvement, though Roosevelt had yet to make any formal declaration for or against intervention in Europe. No, the pilots who dropped these messages knew that there job was a battle of the mind to be fought without bullets and bombs, but which would ultimately lead to the overthrow of the darkest force to be seen on the Continent since Genghis Khan had approached the walls of Paris.

    Michael Fletcher had woken up on the morning of September 30 to the usual siren wailing the all clear for the night. The war had waged around him month after month with word of defeat and news of despair continuing to pour in from across the globe. The Royal Navy in the Mediterranean was weighed down under Hitler's air power. The army in North Africa were playing a game of cat and mouse with Rommel in the desert. The bombs had stopped falling on London only a few weeks prior and the sirens still blared their nightly warnings against the coming danger. Hitler had turned Eastward in his double cross against Stalin, but still the people in England knew that it was only a matter of time before the Soviets collapsed as the French had done and the bombers were again heard overhead.

    Michael put a kettle on to boil and moved towards the darkened windows. He stood for a minute with his toes illuminated from underneath the blackout curtain by the smallest bar of light running criss-cross his kitchen floor. Reaching out his hand, he pulled back the black monstrosity and blinked in the early morning sunlight. He lived in the countryside--or at least as close to the countryside as one could be given his job in the Shop in Manchester. The water began to boil and he poured it into his cup. No proper tea existed any longer, but there were cheap bags to be found lying about. His ration card was sparse, but he didn't need much. Lanky and tall, he brushed back the wisp of light red hair that fell over his forehead and felt the warmth of the water fill him up and enliven his limbs. The artist in Michael loved mornings like this which so often filled him with awe--ever since he was a small boy.

    Michael's small terraced house faced the east, away from the smoke of the city and the bustle of the traffic. He had moved into this particular residence because it had afforded him a view of the few trees in the area which still stood after more than two years of rationed fuel and nightly air raids. Though many of the forests had been cut down for use in firewood and production, he knew, some how these trees had still remained. Standing resolutely between the city to the east and the hills to the west as they had done for nearly a millennium. Michael had named them--a romantic notion for a well brought up English boy, he knew--and he had used them in his own sketches as the great guardians of civilization. Ages ago the threat had swept across England from the North Sea and after that the Channel had made way for William and his Norman invaders. Now the very sky was an enemy, filled with wicked birds whose talons were sharp and who snatched the lives of young children away from their parents. But the trees remained, tall and fast against any threat to Michael and his neighbors.

    Shaking himself from his reverie, Michael turned towards the bedroom and his drab, unobtrusive work uniform. It was required as part of the assignment: No one must stand out. The security of the nation and the secrecy of the operation dependent upon it. He even carried his art supplies in a tin tool box which rattled and clanged with brushes and pens. Every morning he went in at what would have been a shift's siren if they still were in operation, and every evening he went out again with the same silent alarm. Nobody paid him much notice either way. He wasn't a sociable person, and he was a stranger at the nearby pub, preferring to take his beer in the quiet of his home with his own sketches and drawings to occupy him.

    The neighbor's dog was barking. Philip, a mechanic, would be off to work and Michael must follow. Mustn't be late--too many things to do, too many lives counting on the success of the mission. Michael suppressed an ironic smile at the notion that these silly posters and pamphlets were of any real consequence. He'd painted hundreds of beautiful pieces of art before the war, and none of them had done more than cause the casual passer-by the glance twice. How could these gaudy pieces with their overt messages and lampoons of world leaders possibly alter the course of anyone's war. No, what he longed for was for the chance at something truly great and meaningful. Disqualified from regular service due to a chest condition which had kept him bedridden during much of childhood and slow moving as an adult, his artistic ability had been quickly seized upon and he'd been handed the unprepossessing uniform of the Truth Brigade.

    Gathering up what was left of the last night's dinner and today's rations, he packed his lunch pail and his tin box and made his way down the front steps into the garden and out the gate. Once in the street, he turned slowly to his left and walked with deliberate speed up the slowly rising hill towards the bus stop. Glancing at his watch and taking into account the emptiness of the street around him, Michael quickened his pace to get to the top of his hill before the bus arrived and left without him. This was a regular occurrence; tardiness ran deep in his family tree. He often wondered whether or not his ancestors' delay in arrival in 1066 had led to the glorious defeat at Hastings. Just another minute to go, and the bus hadn't rounded the corner of the high street. Today was starting out nicely.

    Once this road would have been fairly packed with pedestrians, bicycles, automobiles, and elderly ladies walking small yapper dogs. These days, though, the high street was deserted. Children, what children there were left after the initial wave of evacuations, remained indoors and stayed close to home; conscription had gathered up the young men and hauled them off to training camps, naval vessels, and military academies. Even the girls were heavily involved with the war effort: serving in hospitals, Red Cross campaigns, Women's Auxiliary, and the like. The hustle and bustle of the city was now as quiet as a frozen landscape--the only motion was the river and the ever dependable omnibus system running workers and soldiers to and from destinations all vitally important to ensuring victory.

    Drab grey stones lined the pavement between the front gate of the factory and the ominous metal doors with their special combination locking system. From the road, this building was completely uninteresting. The edifice was simple brickwork reaching two-to-three stories in height. Black smoke spewed out of mammoth stacks on the flat roof and dressed the sky in mourning. The windows were tall and made of smoked glass with heavy cast iron bars running perpendicular across the frame. The hours of operation were droned by a heavy bell which tolled along the hands of the clock which stood imposingly above the windows and directly in line above the heavy double doors. Michael took a deep breath and pulled the mammoth doors out and placed heavy work boots across the threshold.

    Inside the building was bright and busy. No one would guess, walking casually past on a cheerless morning, that the building buzzed like a hive--not with heavy equipment operations or airplane manufacture, but with the heavy business of printing presses, drafting rooms, long tables surrounded by the bobbing heads of men and women poring over information which came steadily across the noisy ticker just inside the doorway. Michael had to step aside quickly as a young runner came dashing up to the ticker, pulled out a piece of tape, and ran off down the long, factory floor and up the metal stairs at the far end. Michael heard him running with heavy strides down the length of the catwalk overhead and to a windowed office overlooking the central work floor and the three heavy presses. Michael placed his tin box on the bench nearest the door, unzipped his workman's uniform, and stepped out of his heavy work boots. Once he had doffed the drab, grey-green coveralls, Micheal was wearing a plain white shirt and blue trousers held up by suspenders. The work boots would go back on his feet--safety precautions--but the ugly jumpsuit was not part of the wardrobe in the Truth Brigade.

    Bending over to tie his boots and pick up his tin, Michael made has way down the corridor created by two of the large printing presses and towards the long room at the back of the factory. Here he would find his desk and a list of tasks for the day. Often he was allowed to work alone, but recently there had been a rush of activity across the ticker and he had been assigned part of a larger team to produce a wide array of information (and disinformation) packets. Posters were put aside as His Majesty's Government issued proclamations regarding food rationing, safety precautions, transportation restrictions, enemy evils, and the ubiquitous admonitions to "Keep Calm" plastered on every wall. Michael often chuckled to himself that the exhortation to keep calm would be easier kept by those who weren't constantly being forced to digest information vital tot heir lives at every second of the day. Never mind all that, though, today was hot with activity. The Old Man had been on the wireless last night, presenting his vision of Englishmen and the War Effort to the nation as he did so very oten.

    When Churchill had been elevated to the Premiership on May 10, 1940 he had promised the nation two things: a government which would work together in order to ensure victory and that this victory would be hard-won through blood, toil, tears, and sweat. Many of the people within the nation and the government, had been scandalized by the removal of Neville Chamberlain from his position as Prime Minister, especially after the work he had done in order to secure "peace in our time". It had been Chamberlain, after all, who had flown to Munich and settled matters with the Fuhrer and reached a gentleman's agreement with the Third Reich regarding its designs on Europe. Chamberlain had sworn to the people that Hitler's ambitions spread no further than Czechoslovakia and Poland; that the Third Reich was, in fact, a necessary evil which acted as a buffer zone between the Democracies and the Soviets governed by "that butcher, Stalin". The people had held out hope that that crazy old man (Churchill) wouldn't be allowed to bring his hatred of peace to the Government Bench ever again.

    Sadly, their hopes had been dashed as over and over Hitler's troops marched across Europe, amassing power and support, while Britain sat by and allowed him ever more and more dainties with which to decorate his table. Conquest was an aphrodisiac, it seemed, and Hitler's lust was insatiable. With the fall of Poland and the alliance between Hitler's Reich and Stalin's Soviet Union the House of Commons finally rose up and issued a referendum against Chamberlain and the Appeasers, resulting in a Unity Government headed by The Old Bulldog himself. Michael had been in the pub when the radio had announced a special broadcast from Westminster. Winston Churchill, it seemed, was going to address the House of Commons and the Nation for the first time as their Prime Minister.

    The room had gone deathly still. Here at last was the fear and dread made real as the radio crackled and hissed and the deep voice of the new PM was heard announcing his ascension from the rank of Torry Back Bencher to the head of a yet-to-be-formed national Government.

    "In this crisis I hope I may be pardoned if I do not address the House at any length today. I hope that any of my friends and colleagues, or former colleagues, who are affected by the political reconstruction, will make allowance, all allowance, for any lack of ceremony with which it has been necessary to act. I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realised; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal. But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, "come then, let us go forward together with our united strength."
 

Everyone was still and the room was very quiet as the words of the speech sat heavily in the air. Finally, an ironical voice had piped up "God Save the King"--just for a moment, everyone chuckled--and suddenly, and without warning, the room rose to its feet and every voice to the rafters with the words so often sung and so often ignored through the years. Here in this place, though, these were the offerings of deeply religious men to their totem: to their king and country they would sacrifice their lives--God help them.

    Michael, too, had been caught up in the patriotic furor though he had been working to ensure the "survival of the British Empire" for many years already. At this moment it all became painful and true, thrilling and terrible at the same time. He had failed--the war had not been averted, the enemy had not capitulated. The French had failed to act against Hitler at the Rhine and the Appeasers had done nothing but feed the gluttonous power now stalking through Europe with unabated appetite. He'd gone home that night and thrown his paint supplies to the floor in disgust. Tomorrow, he knew, would come whether with or without Hitler, and the fear and loathing he felt about the coming struggle turned his stomach. He wretched, heaving out his dinner and fell asleep until the sirens wailed the All Clear once more.

    That day had been over a year ago. Since Churchill's ascension to power the nation had lost men and women, fled Dunkirk and Crete, declared war on France's Vichy government, and survived the air raids which had gone on every night until Hitler had decided to stab Stalin in the back with his turn to the East. And still England stood alone. India was in turmoil as Ghandi preached nonviolence and capitulation; The Atlantic ocean was ruled by the German U Boats and North Africa was an ocean ruled by Rommel's tanks. Roosevelt continued to make stern warnings against the actions of Hitler's government and in support of the Churchill's, but America remained isolationist and aloof. Not even the sinking of American military and commercial shipping by U Boats was enough to bring the continental power into the struggle. England continued to sally on alone, as Churchill had sworn that she would, and alone she stood facing outward into the ever growing menace which surrounded her.