To End All War by Jerry Ahern

Author:Jerry Ahern [Ahern, Jerry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, War, Science Fiction And Fantasy, Science Fiction, Military
ISBN: 9780821731444
Google: DGQLngEACAAJ
Amazon: B00FPXBSU8
Barnesnoble: B00FPXBSU8
Goodreads: 366515
Publisher: Zebra
Published: 1990-10-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-five

Annie Rourke Rubenstein sat at the farthest interior edge of the platform, her feet over the side, swinging. When she swung them back, she could not see them because the hem of her skirt flared outward slighdy, and when she swung them forward, she watched them intensely.

What was she doing here?

Her husband, her father, her brother, and her many friends—because they were men, they were outside of this granite coccoon, preparing to fight or fighting already, trying not to die but perhaps dying already.

And because she was female, she was here, in as much safety as they could provide.

Women were physically smaller, of course, or usually so, at least. And, all things being equal, they were possessed of less upper body strength. Generally, men could run faster.

She had never wished to be a man, always quite content with her womanhood, more so —ohh, so much more so — since becoming Paul’s wife. But she was never content with the idea men had about women, that they were to be excluded.

She pulled her feet up and turned around, bringing her knees almost to her chin. There were no men here. There was not a single one.

Only wives of high-ranking officers, the daughters of those wives, the female relatives of the political elite, and a number of female German military personnel, presumably to assist the female civilians or perhaps to guard them in the remotely possible event of the mountain’s being overrun and the vault doors sealing them inside somehow occurring.

Aside from these female military personnel, Annie, her mother, and Natalia were the only persons who were armed.

She could see her mother sitting down, her pistol belt across her lap. Her mother sat down a great deal these days … the baby, of course. She could see Natalia pacing back and forth, smoking a cigarette, angry looks being fired at her because she was ‘polluting1 the scrubbed air.

Annie Rourke Rubenstein recalled the lines from John Milton: “Thousands at his bidding speed, And post o’er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait.”

She wasn’t standing, and she was, already, damned tired of waiting.

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