The First Reginald Bretnor MEGAPACK ®. Reginald Bretnor
The General paused reflectively. “Hmm, perhaps so, perhaps so. They always called Napoleon ‘the little Corporal.’”
“The thing that really bothers me, General, is how we’re going to get through without our own people listening in. I guess they must’ve worked out something on it, or they wouldn’t have scheduled the—the offensive for five o’clock. That’s only four hours off.”
“Now that you mention it,” said General Pollard, coming out of his reverie, “a memorandum did come through—Oh, Miss Hooper, bring me that memo from G-I, will you?—Thank you. Here it is. It seems that they have decided to—er—scramble the broadcast.”
“Scramble it, sir?”
“Yes, yes. And I’ve issued operational orders accordingly. You see, Intelligence reported several weeks ago that the enemy knows how to unscramble anything we transmit that way. When Mr. Schimmelhorn goes on the air, we will scramble him, but we will not transmit the code key to our own people. It is assumed that from five to fifteen enemy monitors will hear him. His playing of the tune will constitute Phase One. When it is over, the microphones will be switched off, and he will play it backwards. That will be Phase Two, to dispose of such gnurrs as appear locally.”
“Seems sound enough.” Major Hanson frowned. “And it’s pretty smart, if everything goes right. But what if it doesn’t? Hadn’t we better have an ace up our sleeve?”
He frowned again. Then, as the General didn’t seem to have any ideas on the subject, he went about his duties. He made a final inspection of the special sound-proof room in which Papa Schimmelhorn would tootle. He allocated its observation windows—one to the President, the Secretary, and General Pollard; one to the Chiefs of Staff; another to Intelligence liaison; and the last to the functioning staff of Operation Gnurr, himself included. At ten minutes to five, when everything was ready, he was still worrying.
“Look here,” he whispered to Papa Schimmelhorn, as he escorted him to the fateful door. “What are we going to do if your gnurrs really get loose here? You couldn’t play them back into the voodvork in a month of Sundays!”
“Don’dt vorry, soldier boy!” Papa Schimmelhorn gave him a resounding slap on the back. “I haff yet vun trick I do nodt tell you!”
And with that vague assurance, he closed the door behind him.
“Ready!” called General Pollard tensely, at one minute to five.
“Ready!” echoed Sergeant Colliver.
In front of Papa Schimmelhorn, a red light flashed on. The tension mounted. The seconds ticked away. The General’s hand reached for a sabre-hilt that wasn’t there. At five exactly—
“CHARGE!” the General cried.
And Papa Schimmelhorn started tootling Come to the Church in the Wildwood.
The gnurrs, of course, came from the voodvork out.
The gnurrs came from the voodvork out, and a hungry gleam was in their yellow eyes. They carpeted the floor. They started piling up. They surged against the massive legs of Papa Schimmelhorn, their tiny electric-razor sets of teeth going like all get out. His trousers vanished underneath the flood—his checkered coat, his tie, his collar, the fringes of his beard. And Papa Schimmelhorn, all undismayed, lifted his big bassoon out of gnurrs’ way and tootled on. “Come, come, come, come. Come to the church in the vildvood…”
Of course, Major Hanson couldn’t hear the gnurr-pfeife—but he had sung the song in Sunday school, and now the words resounded in his brain. Verse after verse, chorus after chorus—The awful thought struck him that Papa Schimmelhorn would be overwhelmed, sucked under, drowned in gnurrs…
And then he heard the voice of General Pollard, no longer steady—
“R-ready, Phase Two?”
“R-ready!” replied Sergeant Colliver.
A green light flashed in front of Papa Schimmelhorn.
For a moment, nothing changed. Then the gnurrs hesitated. Apprehensively, they glanced over their hairy shoulders. They shimmered. They started to recede. Back, back, back they flowed, leaving Papa Schimmelhorn alone, triumphant, and naked as a jaybird.
The door was opened, and he emerged—to be congratulated and reclothed, and (much to Sergeant Colliver’s annoyance) to turn down a White House dinner invitation in favor of a date with Katie. The active phases of Operation Gnurr were over.
* * * *
In far-away Bobovia, however, chaos reigned. Later it was learned that eleven inquisitive enemy monitors had unscrambled the tootle of the gnurr-pfeife, and that tidal waves of gnurrs had inundated the enemy’s eleven major cities. By seven fifteen, except for a few hysterical outlying stations, Bobovia was off the air. By eight, Bobovian military activity had ceased in every theatre. At twenty after ten, an astounded Press learned that the surrender of Bobovia could be expected momentarily… The President had received a message from the Bobovian Marshalissimo, asking permission to fly to Washington with his Chief of Staff, the members of his Cabinet, and several relatives. And would His Excellency the President—the Marshalissimo had radioed—be so good as to have someone meet them at the airport with nineteen pairs of American trousers, new or used?
VE Day wasn’t in it. Neither was VJ Day. As soon as the papers hit the streets—BOBOVIA SURRENDERS!—ATOMIC MICE DEVOUR ENEMY!—SWISS GENIUS’ STRATEGY WINS WAR!—the crowds went wild. From Maine to Florida, from California to Cape Cod, the lights went on, sirens and bells and auto horns resounded through the night, millions of throats were hoarse from singing Come to the Church in the Wildwood.
Next day, after massed television cameras had let the entire nation in on the formal signing of the surrender pact, General Pollard and Papa Schimmelhorn were honored at an impressive public ceremony.
Papa Schimmelhorn received a vote of thanks from both Houses of Congress. He was awarded academic honors by Harvard, Princeton, M.I.T., and a number of denominational colleges down in Texas. He spoke briefly about cuckoo-clocks, the gnurrs, and Katie Hooper—and his remarks were greeted by a thunder of applause.
General Pollard, having been presented with a variety of domestic and foreign decorations, spoke at some length on the use of animals in future warfare. He pointed out that the horse, of all animals, was best suited to normal military purposes, and he discussed in detail many of the battles and campaigns in which it had been tried and proven. He was just starting in on swords and lances when the abrupt arrival of Major Hanson cut short the whole affair.
Hanson raced up with sirens screaming. He left his escort of MP’s and ran across the platform. Pale and panting, he reached the President—and, though he tried to whisper, his voice was loud enough to reach the General’s ear. “The—the gnurrs!” he choked. “They’re in Los Angeles!”
Instantly, the General rose to the occasion. “Attention, please!” he shouted at the microphone. “This ceremony is now over. You may consider yourselves—er—ah—DISMISSED!”
Before his audience could react, he had joined the knot of men around the President, and Hanson was briefing them on what had happened. “It was a research unit! They’d worked out a descrambler—new stuff—better than the enemy’s. They didn’t know. Tried it out on Papa here. Cut a record. Played it back today! Los Angeles is overrun!”
There were long seconds of despairing silence. Then, “Gentlemen,” said the President quietly, “we’re in the same boat as Bobovia.”
The General groaned.
But Papa Schimmelhorn, to everyone’s surprise, laughed boisterously. “Oh-ho-ho-ho! Don’dt vorry, soldier boy! You trust old Papa Schimmelhorn. All ofer, in Bobovia, iss gnurrs! Ve haff them only in Los Angeles, vere it does nodt matter! Also, I haff a trick I did nodt tell!” He winked a cunning wink. “Iss vun thing frightens gnurrs—”
“In God’s name—what?” exclaimed the Secretary.