SUBI: THE VOLCANO

A projection of a city under occupation in the Pacific- two days after D-day-has a grim likelihood and does not spare the reader any of the physical or emotional horror of a world which survives another war. The city, near the volcano, Subi, is no more than a cinder patch and hunger feeds the hatred of its two million civilians. Fletcher, a Major attached to Intelligence, records the uneasy occupation with a noncommittal detachment, but he is not impervious to the fear of the enemy agents who are said to swarm through the underground catacombs. Two others figure in the narrative; Judson, a private, said to be psycho because he is a non-conformist who has stolen goods from the commissary for the civilians and bought a young Oriental girl out of a whorehouse; and Packard, a war casualty with only half a face. Plague, and then a hurricane, heightens the unrest of incendiary incidents and riots- Judson escapes to be killed and Packard will soon die, as Fletcher stays on to face the inevitable reprisals of a by no means conquered country.... Forceful.