[ WP ] War breaks about between the US and UK , and most countries quickly join one side or the other .

`` How long has it been?'' 
 
 `` Four hours and thirty two minutes, sir.'' The radioman replied to his commanding officer. 
 
 Nobody moved. Only the slowly pulsing red light did anything to break the stillness of the control room. 
 The Commander had waited too long, but a part of him wanted to wait even longer. Just ten minutes more. Five minutes, even. 
 
 What if there had been some mistake? Perhaps a power outage on the mainland which had silenced all naval broadcasts? 
 Any minute now he expected the men at the radio station to report a new message from Naval command, and the world would go back to normal. 
 They could all go back to their normal duties, and he could retreat back to his cabin with the pictures of his family on the bulkhead, and thoughts of when he would next see them again when they landed in Portsmouth. 
 
 It took him two minutes more to summon the strength to do his duty. 
 
 He summoned over his second in command, a younger man who had been transferred over from the HMS Veracity at the end of their last rotation. 
 `` Lieutenant Commander Cobb, take command until I return. If any signal is received from Naval Command or from the BBC, I want you to inform me immediately. I'm getting the letters.'' 
 
 The Lieutenant Commander straightened up momentarily, offering a salute. The man was ashen faced, realising in a moment what he meant by the'letters'. 
 
 The letters of last resort, as they were known, were the last orders of Her Majesty's Government, to be enacted under one condition only. 
 
 The complete destruction of the British state. 
 
 The Commander of the nuclear submarine opened the safe containing the orders in the presence of two junior officers. Both men looked in a daze, unable to quite comprehend the situation. Had war finally been declared? 
 The three weeks of military posturing on both sides of the Atlantic had ended for god's sake! A peace declaration had been signed! How could their fraternal brothers in America betray them so suddenly? Did n't they know what this would mean? 
 
 The Commander opened the letters. 
 
 `` Sir. If you are reading this; we have failed. Diplomacy has failed. The nuclear beast that we have spent eighty years trying to tame has been released, and it has devoured its children. Those men and women foolish enough to cause this war must not go unpunished. They must be excised by fire from every corner of civilisation so that future generations know what it means to make such a fatal mistake. You must not pity them. You must not be angry at them. You must only do your duty to your country and your people, and exercise our final vengeance. Godspeed.'' 
 
 In the Great War, the Commander remembered, each firing squad assigned for an execution had a single rifle loaded with a blank round. A dud. Nobody in the squad knew if it was their rifle that contained the round and so each man could hope and pray that they were innocent, that the victim did not die by their hand. 
 
 This was not a luxury afforded to the Commander as he turned the key which would send the final vengeance of his country on to their final destinations. 
 
 He did not feel pity, he told himself, as he thoughts of the millions of innocents that he had consigned to death. He did not feel angry, he told himself, clenching his teeth at the thought of never seeing his family again... Never seeing his two kids grow up. 
 
 The submarine shuddered as its arsenal took flight, and the Commander remembered part of a poem that he had once learned in his youth. 
 
 
 
 For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 
 
 And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; 
 
 And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, 
 
 And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still. 
 

