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.