Had the suggested system to flood likely invasion beaches with oil & then ignite it already been set up by this point, or was it only still at the drawing-board stage?
This is a legend, but it has a certain power:
"Is there a weapon temporal for me?" As he spoke there came a fleeting image of the man in Brest and of the warnings that he had received. He knew himself to be venturing among great risks, and he dismissed them from his mind.
The old man said: "I do not know, my son. Yet in past centuries the Church wielded one great cleansing weapon against heresy and infamy and all idolatry, a weapon that sweeps all before it, before which Anti-Christ and all the devils of the Pit recoil. That in past ages was the wisdom of the Church, my son. It is the wisdom still."
"What is this weapon temporal, then, father?"
The priest said: "
It is fire."
He turned and faced Charles Simon. "So in the past the Holy Inquisition fought the battle against heresy, idolatry, and witchcraft, with faith in God and with the weapon temporal of fire. With that faith and that weapon they beat down the devils seeking to destroy the souls of men. Through that faith and that weapon men's souls may again be saved from all the dangers that beset them now."
The priest, facing him, laid his hand upon the designer's arm. "That is the truth of God," he said. "For the weak in faith there is an evidence." He dropped his voice and glanced round furtively. "Listen, my son, and I will tell you what I know."
In the dim light they bent together. "There was a brother of my Order," said the priest. "He was in Belgium, at Ostend, in September last, four months after the Occupation. For those four months he watched the Germans as they trained their troops to sail in barges for the invasion of England— men and guns and motor-bicycles and cars and tanks, and men again, all entering and disembarking from the barges. And finally, my son, the day arrived—September the 16th."
Charles said in a whisper: "What happened then?"
"God in His mercy laid His hand upon the English," the priest whispered in the dark. "They are not of the true Faith, but the Lord God is generous to all sincere misunderstanding, and He led them to the weapon temporal. The barges were three hours from land when British bombers of the Royal Air Force came upon them and dived on the barges, dropping upon them drums of oil and small incendiary bombs. Wave upon wave of aeroplanes came out from England strong in the power of the Lord, oil and incendiary bombs, oil and bombs. And the drums burst on the barges and the oil flowed into them, and the bombs set all on fire so that they blazed fiercely on the water, and the English dropped more oil into the flames."
Charles drew in his breath sharply.
The priest drew back a little. "For ten whole days the bodies came ashore upon the beaches," he said in a low tone. "Choked in the blazing oil, burned, suffocated, and drowned in their vile sins and infamy. Hundreds upon hundreds of them, every day, and the Germans buried them among the sand-hills of the beaches like dead animals, that none might know how they had met their end. Yet it was known all over Belgium and all through the German armies of the Netherlands within a day."
There was a short silence. "Before that power of fire all powers of heresy, idolatry, and witchcraft must recoil," the old man said. "It is not given to us to understand the choice of the Lord's instruments, why He revealed His mercy to the English rather than to us, any more than it is given to us to understand His choice of the Hebrew race in ages past. I only know that by that temporal power the Germans suffered a defeat, the first that they have suffered in this war. Before that power the powers of Mithras were thrown back."
He bent close again. "There was a mutiny,'' he said in a low tone. "A mutiny in the German Army, because the Nazis ordered that the troops should sail again for England. And there was mutiny ... it is true what I say. A hundred officers and men were shot in Antwerp at the rifle-range on September the 29th. And after that, and gradually, the troops were moved away."
They turned and resumed their pacing up and down. "The lesson of the ages has been taught again," the priest said quietly. "No other weapon purges evil from the earth and rids men from their bondage to the powers of darkness. Only the simple elementals can avail against the elemental foe— faith in the Power of God and in the cleansing power of fire."
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Most Secret, Nevil Shute
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