The General had gambled and lost.
He squinted up at the huge screen.
He searched the corners of his tired brain
As he had a hundred times a day
For the right and sometimes any decision.
There, picking their way through the deserted farms
Were thousands, millions of his countrymen.
With no weapons of any kind.
Insanity.
And still they came.
What would they do when they reached
The miles of electric barbed fence
In sight of mortars, guns, tanks
Looking down the precise ranks of soldiers
Ready, hell, eager to open fire?
What was their plan, if any?
To surrender and laugh? Lay siege to the city?
And was their another ragtag Army of Salvation
Set to mass at another city's gates?