Marines would land on every shoreline, the British navy sail unopposed up the Rhine to occupy Cologne, the French take Strassburg, the Italians run through Bavaria. Accompanying them would be Indians, hawk feathers slicked back in the rain, wampum beads flashing by the light of thunderbolts, and as they swung their ash-colored clubs, rendering their enemies into broken bits of bone and meat, there would be launched into the ether one dark flare like a comet, then two flares hanging like medals on a vest, then, at midnight exactly, another pitch and launch into the air, and there they would hang, three blue lights.

A telegram from the Deuxième Bureau was intercepted by the American Liaison Service, which forgot it was spying on its allies and telephoned the cipherists at Deuxième to ask if it was true: an armistice had been signed? The French asked the Americans how they came by that knowledge, and the Americans sent back the telegram they had decoded, and the French were helpless but to confirm, for now they had the same information from two sources.

It was agreed that neither side would discuss this, for it seemed so fragile, like a birthday wish. But it was too late: the telephone call had been relayed by a Hello Girl, who promptly phoned the head of the United Press, who sent a telegram home to New York City while simultaneously the contents of the armistice were typeset and thrown onto broadsides meant to be pasted onto the buildings of Paris. Instead, they were thrown into the air, since pasting took too long, and, besides, Parisians were grabbing them and running: the war was over!

The news ricocheted around the world, with a sound like factory whistles kissing church bells. Schools emptied; stock exchanges closed; delinquent boys launched fireworks in Central Park, and when they ran out of matches, the cops gave them more, while Dalmatians ran in circles, barking.

On the former battlefields, men slathered in mud shredded their orders and threw them into the air, and then they grabbed at the walls, and flung heaps of mud, for it was the only thing left to throw.

It was not midnight, but the skies were dark enough at seven p.m. The first sighting was by spotters above the deathly St. Quentin Canal. Standing with their feet on the backs of decaying bodies, they threw off their respirator masks because the eyepieces were so scratched and smudged. They beheld a sight no one had believed could exist. But there they were: hanging like stars, three blue lights.

Chemists understood flares and fireworks and how to provide the proper colors, and there were several variations. Over Bellenglise, someone had launched three aqua-colored rescue flares that arched and plummeted within a minute. Someone deep in the tangle of Charleveaux shot a modified trio of mortars that did much the same, indigo fizzles that sent the Allied and German soldiers into parched, exhausted tears.