Jerry watched from his gun post as the city
vanished in a cloud of atomic smoke. His thoughts
were of his wife and son, but duty demanded that—
A Soldier's Home Is Battle
By Lowell Stone
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
March 1954
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
By the time the radar signal caught their eye it was too late to doanything. Planes traveling faster than sound were already inside thedefense zone of the city.
Private First Class Jerry Conlon glanced from the radar screen tothe other five members of his Atomic Gun Post team on the outerperimeter of the city. The look in their eyes was one of dazed alarm.Automatically he joined them in zipping shut radiation suits, and thenthey went for the gun controls, knowing it was too late.
A flash of intolerable brightness faded out the sun. One of theboys—Conlon saw him still struggling with his radiation suit—didn'tmake it in time. He paid for his slowness with his life.
In that instant of death before his eyes, Jerry thought of his wifeand baby son. It was all he had time for. Just the image in his mind.An image of fear, because he wondered about them—were they dying evennow?
With the great flash Jerry dropped into the prone position that he'dbeen taught. He was protected because the Gun Post had been holed intothe ground and re-enforced with steel-mesh concrete all around. If yousee the flash, it's too late, he'd been told. Well, he'd seen the flashall right. When he dropped to the concrete base, the floor rose to meethim halfway. A few seconds later, the suction raised him off the floorand set him down next to the big gun.
Jerry crawled back to the protection of the bulwark. He had a hazyglimpse of movement around him, but he couldn't see well enough out ofhis blinded eyes to make out what the others were doing. Things werebeginning to rain down out of the sky now, and it continued to rain forwhat seemed to Jerry like five or ten minutes. It was fantastic howhigh some of the debris must have been blasted into the air, and hewas afraid to move for a long time lest a rock or bit of metal shouldsuddenly streak down.
It was mostly just the smaller pieces that got as far as the Post. Thebiggest chunks had either been completely disintegrated or splatteredalong the ground in all directions from the target area. It had beena direct hit. It only took one blast, but that didn't mean it was theonly one in the country. When the attack came, every big city hadprobably been marked for destruction.
Every big city! The thought struck him with sickening force. His wifeand little boy—Mildred and Billy! How about them? Had the blasts goneinland?
"Conlon, are you all right?"
The sound of the voice stabbed at Jerry. He studied the wavering darkform in front of his eyes, and recognition of the voice came slowly.The white blob of the face must belong to Lieutenant Blake. OrdinarilyJerry would have snapped to attention and saluted, but at the momentthe formality seemed ridiculous.
"I guess I'm all right, sir."
"Good!" That was all Blake said as he passed from Jerry's view.
In Jerry's earphones it sounded like a strong wind was blowing. Itcould be the roar of a fleet of rocket planes. Was this the follow-upattack? Why wasn't the order given to man the gun? He groped forwardand sprawled over a pile of debris. Where was everybody? Where wasBlake?