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discernible.’”
    “It was plenty discernible to me… and my copilot will tell you the same thing, unless he’s prejudiced.”
    “He should be. He’s flying your seat today. And you’re a Squadron Commander with a D.F.C. That just makes it worse.”
    “For somebody,” said Jenks, but it was only an echo of bravado. Dennis had shattered him purposely to make him see the hopelessness of his case, to find, if it were humanly possible, some reason for this in the wreckage.
    Dennis had thought himself familiar with every form of fear. He had seen them all, from the strait-jacket cases to the ones who simply sat alone, in lounge and bar and mess, waiting consciously for the inevitable moment when their own paralyzed reflexes would give them final release. He still did not think this was simple fear. He had not thought so from the first. Something was eluding him here as it would elude the court. No court would even bother to search behind such utterly damning facts. And yet the man had flown nineteen missions. Wearily, Dennis began again.
    “Jenks, if you’ve got any legitimate reason whatever…”
    The anteroom door crashed open and the General looked up with impatience to see Evans holding it ajar. Even before he could voice a rebuke the Sergeant spoke warningly.
    “Major General R. G. Kane and party, sir.”

Chapter 3
    General Kane seldom visited the operating echelons of his command. He would have considered any need to do so a symptom of weakness in the subordinate commander involved, a condition remediable by instant replacement. Instead he ruled with painstaking attention from desk and telephone. Like every commander he bridged a gulf between upper and nether regions, connecting and explaining them to each other. Policy and Plans came down: results went up. His duty was to execute the former and answer for the latter.
    Officially his status between the worlds he linked was rigidly neutral. But no man became a major general without realizing that the practical division of his two worlds was simple. Below him were troubles, above him opportunities.
    Kane had moved upward through life because his eyes were fixed upward. But they had never been blind to the fact that men must climb on something solid. He had always fought fiercely, on his own level and above it, for the subordinates he wanted. When he got them he made it his business to see that they liked working for him.
    This transitory war with Germany had not changed either Kane or the conditions of life that had made him. It had only expanded both his troubles and his opportunities. He remained vigilant of his key subordinates, who, sharing in the bonanza that had elevated him, were now mostly brigadiers.
    But the lieutenant generals, the admirals, the Embassy, the press, the Prime Minister, and Kane’s Allied opposite numbers were in London. There the battle lines of the permanent wars, between the army and the navy, between the army and its troublesome stepson of the air, between service and civilians, had been extended from Washington. And there, for most of every day and late into the night, Kane fought the wars he knew best.
    The luxury of liking or disliking people he had long since abandoned as an extravagance beyond the military life. But he had deliberately incurred the wrath of three lieutenant generals to get Dennis for himself.
    Dennis could not only operate a division, he could have operated an air army. He was young but so was the war. There were men with three stars who would have traded records with him. Kane had spent long hours with his most private card index before making the decision. It was finally his conclusion that of all the coming men in the army he wanted firmly placed before turning his back on the fickleness of Washington, Dennis was foremost.
    Professionally it had been a hard decision. Final choice had lain between Dennis and Garnett, who had been strongly urged upon him. The two men were opposites. Garnett’s very real