Джон Болл - The First Team

“I know, dad,” Greg said.

Jones could not help it; he tightened his arm about his son and fought desperately to keep back his own tears. “Son, I love you with all my heart and soul; I’d give my life for you in a moment if I could. I want you to know that just having you for my son, in these years, has been one of the greatest joys of my life. And our Savior loves all of us this same way too, so we have nothing whatever to fear when we pass into His hands.”

Greg’s face began to tighten as he fought to keep himself under control. Then he failed and the tears came openly. “Dad, I don’t want to die!”

Jones flung both of his arms around his boy and lifted his eyes to ask for the compassion of Heaven. Then he could control himself no longer. He was racked by a great heart-wrenching sob that he was totally unable to control and then he felt his wife’s hands on him and knew that she was trying her best to comfort him. “Remember what you just told me,” she pleaded. “Remember!”

Reverend Jones lowered his head in shame because he could not remember. He was gripped by sudden desperate and uncontrollable fear — not for himself, but for his son. For all the promise of him, for all of his youth and good health, for all of the healthy and normal interests that he had, for all the years that he had labored in school for the not too outstanding, but better-than-average marks that he had brought home. For the hope that when he had matured a little more he would one day take a wife who would bring him a lifetime of happiness. For the prospect of grandchildren sometime in the future and the pride of having given a fine young citizen to society. And for the years of companionship that should have remained to them. And for the wonderful, irreplaceable, God-given girl who had consented to become his wife and share the restricted hopes of a minister of the Gospel and the limited outlook for anything more than a very modest scale of living all their lives. All of it piled up on him until he felt like crying aloud, as One had done before him, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

He fought; with all of the spirit and conviction that he possessed he fought to find himself once more, to thrust from him the fearful, brutal, insane injustice of it all, and to remember that there would only be a few minutes of acute distress and then the gates of Heaven would open before him. He remembered the Jews who had died under Hitler, and the thousands who had gone to the stake for the sake of their faith, or in spite of it. His dear ones did not have to face death by fire and the frightful agony of having their flesh burned from their bones. There would be a firing squad, only a few moments facing the guns, and then the face of God…

A man came to the door of the huge room. The Reverend Mr. Jones did not see him at first, but he sensed the sudden change around him and looked up to see what had caused it. When he saw the man in uniform he shot out his own hand and gripped his wife’s fingers until the pain almost made her dizzy, but she said nothing and gave no sign.

The man had a paper in his hand and that meant that the time had come.

“Dear God in heaven, grant me the grace and the strength…” he began, speaking aloud without realizing it.

The man raised his voice and half-shouted, half-spoke in English. “You can all go home.”

Doris Jones did not comprehend the miracle, her mind was too numb from the torture it had undergone. Greg did not believe the words, and looked at his father for the strength to resist this last, utterly cruel jest.

The man in uniform began to motion that people should go out the door. “A mercy,” Mr. Jones thought, “a mercy to make it easier for them to get into the trucks or whatever they have waiting.” But when, halfway in the exodus, he at last led the way through the door so that his little family could have the last split second of comfort, there were no trucks waiting, no long gray buses, nothing but a rapidly gathering crowd of the curious who were staring at them.

A sudden blinding light caught Mr. Jones in the face and made him stop. Then he heard the voice of a man who thrust a microphone before his face and asked him, “Who are you, sir — what is your name, please?”

In the stunned condition of his mind he hardly knew how to answer; he stammered out “Jones” and then recovered himself enough to add, “I’m… the pastor of…” and he could not remember the name of his own church.

The man with the microphone picked him up very fast. “You have been comforting the others, haven’t you, reverend?” he said and made it a statement that somehow had to be replied to.

“Yes, the best that I could.”

“Your prayers have been answered, sir, you know that now, don’t you?”

The Reverend Mr. Jones didn’t know, for he was far from sure as yet, but he nodded his head and looked again at the swelling crowd that was pressing in for a closer look.

“Sir, this is not for just one network, the whole nation is watching and listening. Please, tell us what it was like.”

“I’d… rather not do that.” The emotions he had felt were still locked into his mind and he did not yet believe that deliverance had come.

“Sir,” the man said, “you have all been set free, because of a nuclear submarine. A fearful weapon of war, yet so far it hasn’t fired a shot. Have you anything to say to that, sir?”

Those were the first words that the tortured minister really heard, but he did hear them and at last understood. He raised his head and answered. “Yes,” he said, “I do.” With shaking fingers he placed his hands together. “Let us pray.”

Across the whole breadth of the nation he was heard by uncounted millions of people. And some of them bowed their heads, in their own homes or wherever they were, and waited for his words.

Senator Solomon Fitzhugh sat in the quiet confines of Admiral Barney Haymarket’s office and looked across the desk at the man he had once regarded as an adversary in what seemed to be the dim past. The admiral himself gave no evidence of even remembering those days; instead he relaxed to the point where he took off his reading glasses and rubbed his eyes with his fists as though to clear away some of the fatigue that had settled into them during the past several weeks.

When he had finished, he turned his attention to his guest. “Senator, I’m sure that you’ve been keeping up with the dispatches that I’ve had bucked on to you, so you know that, thanks to the grace of God, we’ve at last got a victory on our hands.”

“More or less yes,” Fitzhugh said.

“I invited you in,” the admiral continued, “because I wanted to fill you in a little more and also to advise you that you may have a further and very important role to play.”

Fitzhugh looked at him. “I have been regarding myself more or less as a discard at this point. I publicly reversed myself on a position that I have been maintaining steadfastly for years. I doubt if my constituents…”

The admiral raised a hand to stop him. “I don’t have a poll available to prove it,” he said, “but I would guess that your popularity, on a national basis, is at an all-time high. And that’s damn good, because we’re going to make use of it.”

“Another speech?”

Haymarket shook his head. “Considerably more important than that.”

He got up and poured out two more cups of coffee, setting one in front of the senatpr almost automatically. “Let me lay it out for you so that you will understand exactly where we stand. We are entering into a new phase of things which is a lot different than international diplomacy is supposed to be — it is strictly a face-saving period. If — and I say that very seriously — we can pull the chestnuts out in such a way that not only no one gets burned, but also certain people are made to look good in the process, we may be able to trade off a little prestige for some very big stakes.”