Three days after George had killed his first man, action ceased. The countryside was deathly still. Not a living person could be seen for several miles around. But George still stood patiently in the square. He stood there for three more days and yet nothing happened. On the fourth day, he sensed that a solitary soldier had started toward the city from five miles to the east. In his mind's eye he followed the soldier approaching the city. The soldier, a sergeant, was bearing a white flag that fluttered in the breeze; he was not armed. After an hour he saw the sergeant enter the square and walk toward him. When they were within twenty feet of one another, the soldier stopped and saluted. "Major General Pitt requests a meeting with you, sir," the soldier said, trembling and trying hard not to. "Do not be frightened," George said. "I see you intend me no harm." The soldier reddened. "Will you accompany me?" "Certainly." The two turned toward the east and started to walk. * * * * * Five miles east of Brentwood lies a small community named Minerva. Population: 200. The highway from Brentwood to Chicago cuts the town in two. In the center of town, on the north side of the road, stands a new building--the Minerva Town Hall--built the year before with money raised by the residents. It was the largest and most elaborate building in Minerva, which had been evacuated three days before. On this morning the town hall was occupied by army men. Maj. Gen. Pitt fretted and fumed at the four officers and twenty enlisted men waiting in the building. "It's an indignity!" he railed at the men who were forced to listen to him. "We have orders to talk appeasement with him! Nuts! We lose a few men, a few planes and now we're ready to meet George halfway. What's this country coming to? There ought to be something that would knock him out. Why should we have to send in _after_ him? It's disgusting!" The major general, a large man with a bristling white mustache and a red face, stamped back and forth in the council room. Some of the officers and men smiled to themselves. The general was a well known fighting man. Orders he had received hamstrung him and, as soldiers, they sympathized with him. "What kind of men do we have in the higher echelons?" He asked everybody in general and nobody in particular. "They won't even let us have a field telephone. We're supposed to make a report by radio. Now isn't that smart?" He shook his head, looked the men over. "An appeasement team, that's what you are, when you ought to be a combat team to lick hell out of George.