The station announcer gave Hall his signal. Hall mopped his face with his sleeve, glanced at his notes. "For a few hours this afternoon here in San Hermano," he said into the microphone, "most of us believed that virtue is its own reward, that the truth by itself is the most powerful weapon in the hands of a democracy.
"At three o'clock this afternoon, the fascist candidate for the presidency of this Republic conceded defeat in an election marked by the dramatic revelation of his ties with the Falange in Madrid and the Nazis in Berlin. There was no bloodshed, no disturbances. Democracy had scored a bloodless victory in San Hermano.
"For thirty-five minutes and twelve seconds, the elections remained a triumph for the ideals of the late president, Anibal Tabio, a man in the traditions of our own Abraham Lincoln. It was Tabio's life-long belief that 'Ye shall know the truth and it shall make you free.' But Tabio, like the leaders of the last Spanish Republic, placed too much faith in the power of good and decency and progress and had too little fear of the fascist powers of evil abroad in this world.
"At exactly thirty-five minutes and twelve seconds after the fascist Gamburdo conceded the elections to his Popular-Front opponent, the people of this Republic learned that the world has grown much smaller since Lincoln declared that no nation could exist half slave and half free. Today what Lincoln had to say about one nation goes for one world. This one world, our one world, is now torn by a global war. It is a total war. The people of this democracy struck at the Axis today by overwhelmingly defeating the Axis candidate at the polls. It took the Axis exactly thirty-five minutes and twelve seconds to answer the democratic people of this free nation. The answer was delivered by the torpedoes and deck guns of a Nazi submarine lurking thirty miles from the docks of this port...."
He talked on, glancing at the station clock frequently. There was a lot he wanted to cram into his fifteen minutes. If possible, he hoped, he would be able to get in a few words about the big feature story on the front page of the bulldog edition of El Imparcial.
It was a long and lachrymose account of how Mexico was suffering because the food of the nation was being rushed to the American armed forces and how the war had forced inflation and shortages on that suffering Catholic country whose people had no quarrel with Hitler and no love for the Godless Stalin.
The red sweep-second hand raced Hall through his account of this story. "It is no accident that this piece of Axis propaganda should be featured on page one of the nation's leading pro-Franco paper tomorrow," he said. "This is the Falange line for Latin America. This is the unnecessary acid the Axis is preparing to inject into the very real wounds Latin America is suffering and will suffer from this total war."
The announcer standing at the other microphone drew his hand in front of his own throat. Hall's time was up.
Jerry rushed into the studio from the anteroom, where she had been listening to the talk over the studio radio. She kissed him, took his hand as they went downstairs and into the narrow street which led to the Plaza de la Republica. "Where do we go from here, Matt?" she asked.
"God alone knows. Let's get married tomorrow. That's one thing we'd better do while we still have a chance. I used to think I belonged in the army. The army doctors rejected me for combat service; I'm too banged up. Twice I tried to get into Intelligence, the first time before Pearl Harbor. They wouldn't touch me with a fork. Saturday, Colonel Barrows hinted that they were less squeamish about accepting anti-fascists into G-2. He hinted that maybe I could get an Intelligence commission."