At an Emergency Meeting of the NATO Council immediate counter-measures were agreed upon, but it was decided to confine retaliation to Africa and not to use nuclear weapons unless Russia did so first. The 'British Left', which had come into being after the Labor Party had split, withdrew from the House of Commons in protest, and the workers of the largest motor works in Italy assembled outside their long-closed factory to call for strike action.
By mid-December, the war in Africa had settled down to a stalemate. There was a good deal of patrolling; the opposing armies 'lived off the land', in other words on what game they could bag before the other side got it. Food-finding became more important than fighting, and hunger closed the eyes of higher command to the proximity of the enemy, except of course when the enemy was engaged in tracking the same game. Reports from the front recorded these 'patrol skirmishes', and gave account of the really violent artillery duels. Loading and firing guns required less waning energy than infantry slogging in the heavy country. The fact that the wide no-man's-land between the opposing armies formed the main hunting-ground exposed friend and foe to the same gunfire. Casualties were consequently high. The Neutral Investigating Commission appointed after much vetoing by the United Nations—it consisted of delegates from Costa Rica, Kashmir and Monaco—found the situation rather confusing and withdrew to Cannes to consider its findings.
Early in January, a British scientist invented a Very-High-Frequency Lamp, regular exposure to which substituted a certain amount of the energy normally absorbed in food. The equipment was fantastically expensive to produce and was therefore available to very few people. A portable, cheaper and far less efficient model was mass-produced for the armed forces and essential workers. The dashing victories in Africa, forecast by enthusiastic politicians as a certain result of the new machine, did not however materialize. The new energy induced in picked units was expended in a redoubled quest for food. The papers reported increased patrol activity.
An agent planted by the Communists in the Ministry of Defense in London succeeded in photographing the plans of the ray-lamp. Within six weeks, a Russian version of the equipment reached the Red forces in Africa. As a result, the stalemate became staler still. Both sides began to lose control of their troops, which scattered over wide areas of Africa well outside the zone of battle; game had become scarce, and pursuit led both sides further and further afield.
On a swampy peninsula, formed by a hairpin bend of a crocodile-infested river, a British and a French soldier had established their laager. They had joined forces to hunt for edible snakes, and a few hundred yards up-river one of them had trodden on a carelessly buried anti-personnel mine. The soggy ground had prevented the contraption from jumping as high as the designer had intended, and the dense, though leafless undergrowth had screened them from the worst of the blast.
They took it in turns to fetch water in their hats from the river and to bathe each other's wounds. Starving and feverish, neither of them knew for certain when the stranger joined them. He was not in uniform; he spoke English and French so well that they both claimed him for a fellow-countryman. He did not enlighten them, and they did not persist in their questions. He insisted on nursing them and waiting on them. He fetched water for them from the river, and he put clay from the river bank on their septic wounds; he said it would heal them. The Englishman was embarrassed to see that the stranger had tears in his eyes while he did it. To pretend that he had not noticed, the Tommy talked about the flipping bastards who strew flipping mines all over the flipping place. The stranger smiled at that and said he would try to get them some fish from the river. He was away a long time, and when the Englishman crawled down to the river to see what had happened, he saw the stranger on his knees on the river bank. He wanted to shout that one could not catch flipping fish that flipping way, but then he changed his mind and crawled back to the Frenchman. The stranger turned up a little later with his hat full of fine fish. He wanted to light a fire to cook them, but the Frenchman pointed up to where shells from both sides were hissing over them, and they ate the fish raw. It tasted wonderful.
The stranger settled down to stay with them and brought fish and water as often as they felt hungry or thirsty. When he was not otherwise engaged, he used one of their bayonets to whittle away at pieces of wood. Their wounds were clearing up fast and did not hurt any more. The Frenchman insisted on giving the stranger his gascape to sleep in because he had nothing else, and the Tommy pulled out his only spare pair of socks because the stranger's were walked to shreds.
Sometimes the stranger left them for a few days, but he always made sure that they had enough water and fish before he left. He came back dusty and dirty and tired out, but he did not seem to need much sleep. Once, when the Tommy woke in the middle of the night and wanted a drink, he saw the stranger kneeling under a nearby tree. Flipping shell-shock, probably. Poor bastard.