In the Clutch of the War-God
In three parts, from Physical Culture magazine, July - September, 1911.
PART ONE
In the Clutch of the War-God
THE TALE OF THE ORIENT'S INVASION OF THE OCCIDENT, AS CHRONICLED IN
THE HUMANICULTURE SOCIETY'S "HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY"
By Milo Hastings
FOREWORD: In this strange story of another day,
the author has "dipped into the future" and viewed
with his mind's eye the ultimate effect of
America's self-satisfied complacency, and her
persistent refusal to heed the lessons of Oriental
progress. I can safely promise the reader who
takes up this unique recital of the twentieth
century warfare, that his interest will be
sustained to the very end by the interesting
deductions and the keen insight into the
possibilities of the present trend of
international affairs exhibited by the
author.--Bernarr Macfadden.
"Kindly be prepared to absent yourself at a moment's notice." It was
Goyu speaking, blundering, old fool. He was standing in the doorway
with his kitchen-apron on, and an iron spoon in his hand.
"What on earth is the matter?" asked Ethel Calvert, tossing aside
her French novel in alarm, for such a lack of deference in Goyu
meant vastly more than appeared upon the surface.
"I am informed," replied Goyu, gravely, "that there has been an
anti-foreign riot and that many are killed."
"And father?" gasped Ethel.
"He was upon the grain boat," said Goyu.
"But where is he now?"
"I do not know," returned Goyu, locking nervously over his shoulder.
"But I fear he has not fared well--the boat was dynamited--that's
what started the trouble."
With a gasp Ethel recalled that an hour before she had heard an
explosion which she had supposed to be blasting. Faint with fear,
she staggered toward a couch and fell forward upon the cushions.
* * *
When the girl regained consciousness the house was dark. Slowly she
recalled the event that had culminated the uneventful day. She
wondered if Goyu had been lying or had gone crazy. The darkness was
not reassuring--her father always came home before dark, and his
absence now confirmed her fears. She wondered if the old servant had
deserted her. He was a poor stick anyway; Japanese men who had pride
or character no longer worked as domestics in the households of
foreigners.
Ethel Calvert was the daughter of an American grain merchant who
represented the interests of the North American Grain Exporters
Association at the seaport of Otaru, in Hokaidi, the North Island of
Japan. Three years before her mother had died of homesickness and a
broken heart--although the Japanese physician had called it
tuberculosis, and had prescribed life in a tent! Had they not
suffered discomforts enough in that barbarous country without adding
insult to injury?
Ethel was bountifully possessed of the qualities of hothouse beauty.
Her jet black hair hung over the snowy skin of her temples in
striking contrast. Her form was of a delicate slenderness and her
movement easy and graceful with just a little of that languid
listlessness considered as a mark of well-bred femininity. She knew
that she was beautiful according to the standards of her own people
and her isolation from the swirl of the world's social life was to
her gall and wormwood.
The Calverts had never really "settled" in Japan, but had merely
remained there as homesick Americans indifferent to, or unjustly
prejudiced against the Japanese life about them. Now, in the year
1958, the growing anti-foreign feeling among the Japanese had added
to their isolation. Moreover, the Japanese bore the grain merchant
an especial dislike, for every patriotic Japanese was sore at heart
over the fact that, after a century of modern progress, Japan was
still forced to depend upon foreigners to supplement their food
supply.
In fact, they had oft heard Professor Oshima grieve over the
statistics of grain importation, as a speculator might mourn his
personal losses in the stock market.
* * *
For a time Ethel lay still and listened to the faint sound of voices
from a neighboring porch. Then the growing horror of the situation
came over her with anewed force; if her father was dead, she was not
only alone in the world, but stranded in a foreign and an unfriendly
country; for there were but few Americans left in the city.
The girl arose and crept nervously into the dining-room. She turned
on the electric light; everything seemed in order. She hurried over
to Goyu's room, and knocked. There was no answer. Then slowly
opening the door, she peered in--the room was empty and disordered.
Plainly the occupant had bundled together his few belongings and
flown.
Ethel stole back through the silent house and tremblingly took down
the telephone receiver. In vain she called the numbers of the few
American families of the city. Last on the list was the American
Consulate, and this time she received the curt information that the
consul had left the city by aeroplane "with the other foreigners."
The phrase struck terror into her heart. If the European population
had flown in such haste as to overlook her, clearly there was
danger. A great fear grew upon her. Afraid to remain where she was,
she tried to think of ways of escape. She could not steer an
aeroplane even if she were able to obtain one. Otaru was far from
the common ways of international traffic and the ships lying at
anchor in the harbor were freighters, Japanese owned and Japanese
manned.
Ethel looked at her watch--it was nine-twenty. She tiptoed to her
room.
An hour later she was in the street dressed in a tailored suit of
American make and carrying in her hand-bag a few trinkets and
valuables she had found in the house. Passing hurriedly through
quiet avenues, she was soon in the open country. The road she
followed was familiar to her, as she had traveled it many times by
auto.
For hours she walked rapidly on. Her unpracticed muscles grew tired
and her feet jammed forward in high-heeled shoes were blistered and
sore. But fear lent courage and as the first rays of the morning sun
peeked over the hill-tops, the refugee reached the outskirts of the
city of Sapporo.
Ethel made straightway for the residence of Professor Oshima, the
Soil Chemist of the Imperial Agricultural College of Hokiado--a
Japanese gentleman who had been educated and who had married abroad,
and a close friend of her father's. As she reached the door of the
Professor's bungalow, she pushed the bell, and sank exhausted upon
the stoop.
Some time afterward she half-dreamed and half realized that she
found herself neatly tucked between white silk sheets and lying on a
floor mattress of a Japanese sleeping-porch. A gentle breeze fanned
her face through the lattice work and low slanting sunbeams sifting
in between the shutters fell in rounded blotches upon the opposite
straw matting wall. For a time she lay musing and again fell asleep.
When she next awakened, the room was dimly lighted by a little
glowing electric bulb and Madame Oshima was sitting near her. Her
hostess greeted her cordially and offered her water and some fresh
fruit.
Madame Oshima was fully posted upon the riots and confirmed Ethel's
fears as to the fate of her father.
[Illustration: "But have I lost my figure?" inquired the lithe
Madame Oshima.]
"You will be safe here for the present," her hostess assured her.
"Professor Oshima has been called to Tokio; when he returns we will
see what can be done concerning your embarking for America."
Madame Oshima was of French descent but had fully adopted Japanese
customs and ways of thinking.
As soon as Ethel was up and about, her hostess suggested that she
exchange her American-made clothing for the Japanese costume of the
time. But Ethel was inclined to rebel.
"Why," she protested, "if I discarded my corsets I would lose my
figure."
"But have I lost my figure?" inquired the lithe Madame Oshima,
striking an attitude.
To this Ethel did not reply, but continued, "And I would look like a
man," for among the Japanese people tight-belted waists and flopping
skirts had long since been replaced by the kimo, a single-piece
garment worn by both sexes and which fitted the entire body with
comfortable snugness.
"And is a man so ill-looking?" asked her companion, smiling.
"Why, no, of course not, only he's different. Why, I couldn't wear a
kimo--people would see--my limbs," stammered the properly-bred
American girl.
"Why, no, they couldn't," replied Madame Oshima. "Not if you keep
your kimo on."
"But they would see my figure."
"Well, I thought you just said that was what you were afraid they
wouldn't see."
"But I don't mean that way--they--they could see the shape of my--my
legs," said Ethel, blushing crimson.
"Are you ashamed that your body has such vulgar parts?" returned the
older woman.
"No, of course not," said Ethel, choking back her embarrassment.
"But it's wicked for a girl to let men know such things."
"Oh, they all know it," replied Madame Oshima, "they learn it in
school."
At this the highly strung Ethel burst into sobs.
"There, there now," said her companion, regretting that she had
spoken sarcastically. "I forget that I once had such ideas also.
We'll talk some more about it after while. You are nervous and
worried now and must have more rest."
The next day Madame Oshima more tactfully approached the subject and
showed her protege that while in Rome it was more modest to do as
the Romans do; and that, moreover, it was necessary for her own good
and theirs that she attract as little attention as possible, and to
those that recognized her Caucasian blood appear, superficially, at
least, as a naturalized citizen of Japan.
So, amid blushes and tears, protestations and laughter, Ethel
accepted the kimo, or one-piece Japanese garment, and the outer
flowing cloak to be worn on state occasions when freedom of bodily
movement was not required. Her feather-adorned hat was discarded
altogether and her ill-shapen high-heeled boots replaced by airy
slippers of braided fiber.
Her rather short stature and her hair--which fortunately enough was
black--served to lessen her conspicuousness, especially when dressed
in the fashion followed by Japanese girls; and with the leaving off
of the use of cosmetics and the spending of several hours a day in
the flower garden even her pallid complexion suffered rapid change.
It was about a fortnight before Professor Oshima returned from
Tokio. Upon his arrival Ethel at once pleaded with him to be sent to
America, but the scientist slowly shook his head.
"It is too late," he said; "there is going to be a war."
Thus it happened that Ethel Calvert was retained in the Professor's
family as a sort of English tutor to his children, and introduced as
a relative of his wife, and no one suspected that she was one of the
hated Americans.
* * *
The trouble between Japan and the United States dated back to the
early part of the century. It was deep-seated and bitter, and was
not only the culmination of a rivalry between the leading nations of
the great races of mankind, but a rivalry between two great ideas or
policies that grew out in opposite directions from the age of
unprecedented mechanical and scientific progress that marked the
dawn of the twentieth century.
The pages of history had been turned rapidly in those years. The
United States, long known as the richest country, had also become
the most populous nation of the Caucasian world--and wealth and
population had made her vain.
But with all her material glory, there was not strength in American
sinews, nor endurance in her lungs, nor vigor in the product of her
loins. Her people were herded together in great cities, where they
slept in gigantic apartment houses, like mud swallows in a sand
bank. They overate of artificial food that was made in great
factories. They over-dressed with tight-fitting unsanitary clothing
made by the sweated labor of the diseased and destitute. They
over-drank of old liquors born of ancient ignorance and of new
concoctions born of prostituted science. They smoked and perfumed
and doped with chemicals and cosmetics--the supposed virtues of
which were blazoned forth on earth and sky day and night.
The wealth of the United States was enormous, yet it was chiefly in
the hands of the few. The laborers went forth from their rookeries
by subway and monorail, and served their shifts in the mills of
industry.
In turn, others took their places, and the mills ground night and
day.
Even the farm lands had been largely taken over by corporate
control. Crops on the plains were planted with power machinery. The
rough lands had all been converted into forests or game preserves
for the rich. Agriculture had been developed as a science, but not
as a husbandry. The forcing system had been generally applied to
plants and animals. Wonder-working nitrogenous fertilizers made at
Niagara and by the wave motors of the coast made all vegetation to
grow with artificial luxury. Corn-fed hogs and the rotund carcasses
of stall-fed cattle were produced on mammoth ranches for the
edification of mankind, and fowl were hatched by the billions in
huge incubators, and the chicks reared and slaughtered with scarcely
a touch of a human hand. And all this was under the control of
concentrated business organization. The old, sturdy, wasteful farmer
class had gone out of existence.
Only the rich who owned aeroplanes could afford to live in the
country. The poor had been forced to the cities where they could be
sheltered _en masse_, and fed, as it were, by machinery. New York
had a population of twenty-three millions. Manhattan Island had been
extended by filling in the shallows of the bay, until the Battery
reached almost to Staten Island. The aeroplane stations that topped
her skyscrapers stood, many of them, a quarter of a mile from the
ground.
As the materially greatest nation in the world, the United States
had an enormous national patriotism based on vanity. The larger
patriotism for humanity was only known in the prattle of her
preachers and idealists. America was the land of liberty--and
liberty had come to mean the right to disregard the rights of
others.
In Japan, too, there had been changes, but Japan had received the
gifts of science in a far different spirit. With her, science had
been made to serve the more ultimate needs of the race, rather than
the insane demand for luxuries.
The Japanese had applied to the human species the scientific
principles of heredity, nutrition and physical development, which in
America had been confined to plants and animals. The old spirit of
Japanese patriotism had grown into a semi-religious worship of
racial fitness and a moral pride developed which eulogized the
sacrifice of the liberties of the individual to the larger needs of
the people. Legal restrictions of the follies of fashion in dress
and food, the prohibition of alcohol and narcotics, the restriction
of unwise marriages, and the punishments of immorality were
stoically accepted, not as the blue laws of religious fanaticism,
but as requisites of racial progress and a mark of patriotism.
And while Japan showed no signs of the extravagant wealth seen in
America, she was far from being poor. She had gained little from
centralized and artificial industry, but she had wasted less in
insane competition and riotous luxury.
But in Japanese life there was one unsolved problem. That was her
food supply. Intensive culture would do wonders and the just
administration of wealth and the physical efficiency of her people
had eliminated the waste of supporting the non-productive, but an
acre is but a small piece of land at most, and Japan had long since
passed the point where the number of her people exceeded the number
of her acres. A quarter of an acre would produce enough grain and
coarse vegetables to keep a man alive, but the Japanese wanted eggs
and fruit and milk for their children; and they wanted cherry trees
and chrysanthemums, lotus ponds and shady gardens with little
waterfalls.
[Illustration: In the nineteenth month of the war, the emblem of the
Rising Sun was hoisted over Manila.]
Now if the low birth rate that had resulted when the examinations
for parenthood were first enforced had continued, Japan would not
have been so crowded, but after the first generation of marriage
restriction the percentage of those who reached the legal standard
of fitness was naturally increased. The scientists and officials had
from time to time considered the advisability of increasing the
restrictions--and yet why should they? The Japanese people had
submitted to the prohibition of the marriage of the unfit, but they
loved children; and, with their virile outdoor life, the instinct of
procreation was strong within them. True, the assignable lands in
Japan continued to grow smaller, but what reason was there for
stifling the reproductive instincts of a vigorous people in a great
unused world half populated by a degenerate humanity?
So Japan was land hungry--not for lands to conquer, as of old, nor
yet for lands to exploit commercially, but for food and soil and
breathing space for her children.
Among opponents of Japanese racial expansion, the United States was
the greatest offender. Japanese immigration had long since been
forbidden by the United States, and American diplomats had more
recently been instrumental in bringing about an agreement among the
powers of Europe by which all outlets were locked against the
overflowing stream of Asiatic population.
Indeed, America called Japan the yellow peril; and with her own
prejudices to maintain, her institutions of graft and exploitation
to fatten her luxury-loving lords and her laborers to appease, she
was in mortal terror of the simple efficiency of the Japanese people
who had taken the laws of Nature into their own hands and shaped
human evolution by human reason.
As Commodore Perry had forced the open door of commerce upon Japan a
century before, so Japan decided to force upon America the
acknowledgment of any human being's right to live in any land on
earth. She had tried first by peaceful means to secure these ends,
but failing here and driven on by the lash of her own necessity,
Japan had come to feel that force alone could break the clannish
resistance of the Anglo-Saxon, who having gone into the four corners
of the earth and forced upon the world his language, commerce and
customs, now refused to receive ideas or citizens in return.
And thus it came to pass that the West and the East were in the
clutch of the War-God. No one knew just what the war would be like,
for the wars of the last century had been bluffing, bulldozing
affairs concerning trade agreements or Latin-American revolutions.
There had been no great clash of great ideas and great peoples.
The harbors of the world were filled with huge, floating,
flat-topped battleships, within the capacious interiors of which
were packed the parts of aeroplanes as were the soldiers of the
Grecian army in their wooden horse at Troy, for assembling and
launching them. But the engines of warfare which men had repeatedly
claimed would make war so terrible as to end war, had failed to
fulfill anticipations. The means of defense and the rules of the
game had kept pace with the means of destruction. The flat tops of
the warships, which served as alighting platforms for friendly
planes, were heavily armored against missiles dropped from
unfriendly ones. The explosion of a bomb on top of a plate of steel
is a rather tame affair, and guns sufficient to penetrate armor
plate could not be carried on air-craft. The big guns of
battleships, which had for a time grown bigger and bigger, had now
gone quite out of use, for the coming of the armored top had been
followed by the toad-stool warship, which had a roof like an
inverted saucer, and was provided with water chambers, the opening
of the traps of which caused a sudden sinking of the vessel until
the eave dipped beneath the water level and left exposed only the
sloping roof from which the heaviest shot would glance like a bullet
from the frozen surface of a pond.
The first two years of war dragged on in the Pacific. American grain
was of course cut off from Japan and the government authorities
ordered the people to plow up their flower gardens and plant food
crops.
The Americans had too much territory to protect to take the
offensive and their Pacific fleet lay close to Manila, where, with
the help of land aviation forces, they hoped to hold the possession
of the islands, which according to the popular American view was
supposed to be the prize for which the Japanese had gone to war.
The test of the actual warfare proved several things upon which
mankind had long been in doubt. One of these was that, with all the
expert mechanism that science and invention had supplied, the
personal equation of the man could not be eliminated. Aviation
increased the human element in warfare. To shoot straight requires
calm nerves, but to fly straight requires also agility and
endurance.
The American aeroplanes were made of steel and aluminum, and when
they hit the water they sank like lead, but the Japanese planes were
made of silk and bamboo, and their engines were built with multiple
compartment air tanks and after a battle the Japanese picked up the
floating engines and placed them, ready to use, in inexpensive new
planes.
* * *
In the nineteenth month of the war, Manila surrendered, and the
emblem of the rising sun was hoisted throughout the Philippine
Islands. The remnant of the American fleet retreated across the
Pacific, and the world supposed that the war was over.
But Japan refused the American proposals of peace, which conceded
them the Philippines, unless the United States be also opened to
universal immigration. And so it was that when Japan, in addition to
accepting the Philippines, demanded the right to settle her cheap
labor in the United States, the American authorities cut short the
peace negotiation and began concentrating troops and battleships
along the Pacific Coast in fear of an invasion of California.
* * *
With Ethel Calvert's adoption into Professor Oshima's family there
came a great change in her life. At first, she accepted Japanese
food and Japanese clothes as the old-time prisoner accepted stripes
and bread and water. But her captivity proved less repulsive than
she expected and she was soon confessing to herself that there was
much good in Japanese life. Professor and Madame Oshima were not
talkative on general topics but the books on the shelves of the
Professor's library proved a godsend to the awakening mind of the
young woman. Indeed, after a mental diet of French and English
fiction upon which Ethel had been reared, the works on science and
humaniculture, the dreams of universal brotherhood, the epics of a
race in its conquests of disease and poverty were as meat and drink
to her eager, hungry mind.
As the war went on, the horror of it all grew upon her. She read
Howki's "America." She didn't believe it all, but she realized that
most of it was true. She wondered why her people were fighting to
keep out the Japanese. She marvelled that the Japanese who had
adopted such lofty ideals of race culture could find the heart to go
to war. She wished she might be free to go to the government
officials at Tokio and Washington to show them the folly of it all.
Surely if the American statesmen understood Japanese ideals and the
superiority of their habits and customs for the production of happy
human beings, they would never have waged war to keep them out of
the States.
* * *
"In three days we leave Japan," said Professor Oshima, as he sat
down to dinner one evening in the early part of April, 1960.
"All?" asked Komoru, the Professor's secretary.
"We four," replied Oshima, indicating those at the table, "the
children will stay with my mother. I'll need your assistance, and as
for Miss Ethel, she cannot well stay here, so I have had you two
listed. Although it's a little irregular, I am sure it will not be
questioned, for I know more about American soils than any other man
in Japan."
Ethel glanced apprehensively at Komoru. She had never quite
understood her own attitude toward that taciturn young Japanese whom
she had seen daily for two years without hardly making his
acquaintance. She admired him and yet she feared him.
Professor Oshima was saying that she had been "listed" with Komoru
for some great journey. What did it mean? What could she do? Again
she looked up at the secretary; but far from seeing any trace of
scheme or plot in his enigmatical countenance, she found him to be
considering the situation with the same equanimity with which he
would have recorded the calcium content of a soil sample.
As for Professor and Madame Oshima, they seemed equally unruffled
about the proposed journey, and not at all inclined to elucidate the
mystery. Experience had taught the younger woman that when
information was not offered it was unwise to ask questions, so when
the Professor busied himself with much ransacking of his pamphlets
and papers and his wife became equally occupied with overhauling the
family wardrobe and getting the children off to their grandmother's,
Ethel accepted unquestionably the statement that she would be
limited to twenty kilograms of clothing and ten kilograms of other
personal effects, and lent assistance as best she could to the
enterprise in hand.
On the third day the little party, with their light luggage boarded
a train for Hakodate, at which point they arrived at noon. Hurrying
along the docks among others burdened like themselves, they came to
a great low-lying, turtle-topped warship; and, passing down a
gangway, entered the brilliantly lighted interior.
The constant flood of new passengers came, not in mixed and motley
groups, as the ordinary crowd of passengers, but by two, male and
female, as the unclean beasts into the ark. And they were all young
in years and athletic in frame--the very cream and flower of the
race.
[Illustration: Every few seconds an aeroplane shot into the air and
joined the endless winged line.]
Late that evening the vessel steamed out of port, and during the
next two days was joined by a host of other war craft, and the great
squadron moved in orderly procession to the eastward.
One point, that Ethel soon discovered was that, in addition to being
excellent physical specimens, all the men, and many of the women,
were proficient as aviators. Of these facts life on board bore ample
evidence, for the great fan ventilated gymnasium was the most
conspicuous part of the ship's equipment and here in regular drills
and in free willed disportive exercise those on board kept
themselves from stagnation during the idleness of the voyage. Into
this gymnasium work Ethel entered with great gusto, for there was a
revelation in the discovery of her own physical capabilities that
surprised and fascinated her.
In the other chief interest of her fellow passengers, Ethel was an
apt pupil, for though woefully ignorant of aviation, she was eager
to learn. She spent many hours in the company of Professor or Madame
Oshima, studying aeroplane construction and operation from the
displayed mechanisms on board. In fact, they found the great roomy
hold of the ship was packed with aeroplane parts. Small gasoline
turbines were stored in crates by the hundreds; also wings and
rudders knocked down and laid flat against each other and still
lower down in the framework of the floating palace were vast stores
of gasoline.
At the end of two weeks the Japanese squadron was in latitude 34°
north, longitude 125° west, and headed directly for the Los Angeles
district of Southern California--the richest and most densely
populated area of the United States.
One evening, just at dark, after they had been in sight of the
American aerial scouts all day, the Japanese fleet changed its
course and turned sharply to the southward. Now Panama was six days'
steaming from Los Angeles and less than three days from New Orleans.
So the authorities at Washington ordered all warships and available
soldiers on the Gulf Coast to embark for the Isthmus.
Meanwhile there was much going on beneath the armor plate of the
Japanese transports, and on the fourth day of their southward
movement the great trap doors were swung down and aeroplane parts
were run out on the tramways, the planes rapidly set up by skilled
workmen, and firmly hooked to the floor. Above and below deck they
stood in great rows like lines of automobiles in a garage.
Towards sundown the forward planes were manned and in quick
succession shot down the runways and took to the air. Ethel and her
companions were below air the time and hardly knew what was going
on. Their luggage had been taken up some time ago, except for an
extra kima, which they had been ordered to put on. In their turn
they were now called out and ordered to go above, that is, the names
of the men were called and Ethel knew that she was listed as Madame
Komoru, a thing that made her shiver every time it was brought to
her attention.
An exclamation or astonishment escaped the lips of the more
impulsive American girl as she came on deck; for as far as the eye
could see the gray flat tops of the war vessels were covered with
the drab-winged planes, while every few seconds a plane shot into
the air and joined an endless winged line that stretched away to the
northeast.
"Komoru eighty-five: Oshima eighty-six."
The intent of that command was clear and Ethel was soon settled
immediately behind the young secretary in the little bamboo car of a
Japanese plane-of-war.
The propeller started with a shrill musical hum; they raced down the
runway; dipped for a second toward the water; rose, and sailed
swiftly up and on toward the dark line of Mexico, that lay in the
evening shadow cast by the curved surface of the Pacific Ocean.
(To be continued.)
PART TWO.
In the Clutch of the War-God
THE TALE OF THE ORIENT'S INVASION OF THE OCCIDENT, AS CHRONICLED IN
THE HUMANICULTURE SOCIETY'S "NOTES ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY".
By Milo Hastings
Synopsis of Previous Installment: In the year
1958, Ethel Calvert, a daughter of an American
grain-merchant, residing in Japan, because of her
father's death in an anti-foreign riot, is forced
to take refuge with Madame Oshima, the French wife
of a Japanese scientist. She becomes accustomed to
the mode of living followed by the Japanese, and
is finally persuaded to adopt the costume of the
land of her exile. War is declared between Japan
and the United States, and Professor Oshima, and
Komoru, his Secretary, together with Madame Oshima
and Ethel Calvert, sail for United States in a
Japanese war vessel. When near the Pacific Coast,
the many men and women who have been passengers on
the vessel, leave the ship by means of aeroplanes,
and sail eastwardly over Southern California.
The air cut by Ethel's face at a ninety-mile gait, and she gripped
nervously at the hand-rails of the car. Then, regaining confidence,
she began to drink in the novel view about her. Ahead were the
drab-winged aeroplanes growing smaller and smaller until they became
mere specks against the darkening sky. She turned to the rear and
watched the myriads of humans, like birds, rising from the
transports that still lay in the sunshine. There were literally
thousands of them. She wondered if human eyes had ever before
witnessed so marvelous a sight.
They had come over the mainland of Mexico now and were flying at a
height of about half a mile. Shrouded in the tropical twilight, the
landscape below was but dimly discernible. As the darkness came on,
Ethel discovered that a small light glowed from the side of the car
in front of the driver. Gripping the hand-rail, she made bold to
raise herself; and, stopping beneath the searchlight and machine-gun
that hung, one beneath the other, on swivels in the center of the
framework, she peered forward over Komoru's shoulder.
The taciturn steersman turned and smiled but said nothing. Ethel
noted carefully the equipment of the driver's box. It was a
duplicate throughout of the dummy steering gear with which she had
practiced in the ship's gymnasium. One conspicuous addition,
however, was an object illuminated by the small glow lamp that had
attracted her attention. This proved to be chart or map mounted at
either end on short rollers. As the girl watched it, she perceived
that it moved slowly. A red line was drawn across the map and
hovering over this was the tip of a metal pointer. A compass and a
watch were mounted at one side of the chart case.
Ethel watched the chart creep back on its rollers and reasoned that
the pointer indicated the location of the aeroplane. She wondered
how the movement of the chart was regulated with that of the plane.
Finally she decided to ask Komoru.
"By the landmarks and the time," he said. "Do you see that blue
coming in on the northeast corner of the map?"
"Yes."
"Well, watch it."
After a few minutes of waiting the words "_Gulf of Mexico_" rolled
out upon the chart. "Why, that can't be," said Ethel, "we just left
the Pacific Ocean."
"But we have crossed the Isthmus of Tehauntepec," replied Komoru;
"it is only a hundred miles wide."
His companion looked over the side of the car and to the front and.
to the right, she could see by the perfectly flat horizon that they
were approaching water.
"The map is unrolling too fast," said Komoru, as the pointer stood
over the edge of the indicated water--and he pushed back the little
lever on the clock mechanism that rolled the chart. "We have a
little head wind," he added.
Ethel resumed her seat and sat musing for a half hour or so. Komoru
looked around and called to her.
"Look over to your left," he said. "The lights of Vera Cruz. We are
making better time now," he added, again adjusting the regulator on
the clock work.
The driver contemplated his compass carefully and shifted his course
a few points to the right. Ethel settled in her bamboo cage and
pulled her aviation cap down tightly to shield her face and ears
from the wind pressure.
For hours they sat so--the girl's heart throbbing with awe, wonder
and fear; the man unemotional and silent, a steady, firm hand on the
wheel, his feet on the engine controls and his goggled eyes glancing
critically at compass or watch or out into the starlit waste of the
night, disturbed only by the whirl and shadow of other planes which
with varying speed passed or were passed, as the aerial host rushed
onward. There were only small tail lights, one above and one below
the main plane, to warn following drivers against collision.
* * *
With her head bent low upon her knees, Ethel at length fell into a
doze. She was aroused by Komoru's calling, and straightening up with
a start, she arose and leaned forward over the driver. Komoru was
looking intently at the scroll chart. In a moment she designed the
cause of his interest, for there had rolled across the forward
surface of the chart the outline of a coast.
In the far left-hand corner was marked the city of Galveston, and to
the right was the Sabine River that forms the boundary between Texas
and Louisiana. Ethel raised her eyes from the map and looked far out
to the Northwest. Sure enough, she discerned the lights of a city at
the point where Galveston was indicated by the chart.
"How far have we come?" she asked in astonishment.
"Eight hundred miles," replied Komoru. "See, it is nearly
two-thirty. The first men with the faster planes were to have
arrived at one o'clock."
A little later they passed over the dimly discernible coast line,
some thirty or forty miles to the east of Galveston. Komoru
carefully consulted his compass, watch and aneroid, and made a
slight change in his course.
"Where do we land?" asked the girl.
Komoru steadied the wheel with one hand; and, reaching into the
breast pocket of his aviator's jacket, he produced a little
document-like roll. "These are the orders," he explained, and asked
Ethel to spread out the papers on the chart case.
The instruction sheet read:
"Fly twenty-eight minutes beyond the coast line,
which will place you ten or twenty miles northwest
of the town of Beaumont, where a fire of some sort
will be lighted about 3 a.m.
"When you alight locate one or more farm houses
and attach one of the enclosed notices to the
door.
"This done, fly toward the Beaumont signal fire
and assist in subduing the town and capturing all
petroleum works in the region.
"At 6 a.m., if petroleum works are safe, follow
the lead of the red plane and fly northwest as far
as Fort Worth, returning by nightfall to oil
region."
Ethel read the paper over and over as she held it down out of the
wind by the dim glow lamp. She wanted to ask questions. She wondered
what was expected of her. She wondered again as to what was expected
of the entire invasion and why the women had been brought along. But
her questions did not find verbal expression, for she had schooled
herself to await developments.
The roller chart had now come to a stop and showed the red line that
marked their course terminating in a cross to the northwest of the
town of Beaumont. Komoru tilted the plane downward and flew for a
time near the earth. Then checking the speed, he ran it lightly
aground in an open field a little distance from a clump of
buildings.
The driver got out and stretched his cramped limbs. Taking a hand
glow lamp he ran carefully over the mechanism of the plane. Then he
opened a locker and took out two small magazine pistols. One he
handed to Ethel.
"Don't use it," he said, "until you have to."
"Will you go with me?" he asked, "to tack the poster, or will you
stay with the plane?"
"I'll stay here," she replied.
Komoru walked off rapidly towards the house. Presently the stillness
was interrupted by the vociferous barking of a dog; Then there was a
sound as of some one picking a taut wire and the voice of the dog
curdled in a final yelp.
In a few minutes Komoru was back. "Dogs are no good," he said; "they
produce nothing but noise."
"Will you kindly get aboard, Miss Ethel? There is much to do."
[Illustration: By carefully shielding his flash lamp, Komoru was
able to read a duplicate of the notice he had just fastened up.]
Ethel obeyed; meanwhile Komoru inspected the surface of the ground
for a few yards in front of the plane. Returning he climbed into his
seat and started the engine. They arose without mishap.
Within a mile or two, Komoru picked out another farm house and made
a landing nearby.
"I will go with you this time," said Ethel courageously.
Approaching an American residence, Ethel suddenly found herself
conscious of the fact that she was dressed in a most unladylike
Japanese kimo. For a moment the larger sentiments of the occasion
were replaced by the womanly query, "What will people say?" Then she
laughed inwardly at the absurdity of her thought.
Komoru produced the roll from his pocket and unwound a small cloth
poster. This he fastened to the door jam by pressing in the thumb
tacks that were sewed in the hem. Then noting another white blotch
on the opposite side of the door, he carefully shielded his lamp,
and made a light. It was a duplicate of the notice he had just
fastened up and read:
WARNING
"Two hundred thousand Japanese have invaded Texas
and are desirous of possessing your property. You
are respectfully requested to depart immediately
and apply to your government for property
elsewhere. All buildings not vacated within
twenty-four hours will be promptly burned--unless
displaying a flag truce for sufficient reason.
Kindly co-operate with us in avoiding bloodshed.
(Signed) The Japanese People."
"We were late," said Komoru as they walked back toward the plane.
"Two hundred thousand," he mused; "what you call 'bluff,' I guess."
"It's growing light," said Ethel, as they reached the plane.
"Yes, a little," replied Komoru, as he walked around to the front.
"An ugly ditch," he said. "We shall have to use the helicopter."
Taking his seat he threw down a lever and what had appeared to be
two small superimposed planes above the main plane assumed the form
of flat screws. Letting the engine gain full headway, Komoru threw
the clutch on this shafting, and the vertical screws started
revolving in opposite directions with a great downward rush of air.
The whole apparatus tilted a bit, and then slowly but steadily
arose.
When they had reached altitude of a hundred feet or so, the driver
shifted the power to the quieter horizontal propeller and the plane
sidled off like an eagle dropping from a crag.
Tilting the plane upward, Komoru circled for altitude. Presently he
called back over his shoulder, saying that he saw the signal fire at
Beaumont at the same time heading the plane in that direction.
As the dawn began to break in the East, the occasional passing
lights of flying planes became less bright and soon the planes
themselves stood out against the sky like shadows. And then the
whole majestic train of aerial invaders became visible as they
poured over the southern horizon---a never ending stream.
Komoru and Ethel landed in a meadow already well filled with planes
and following the others, hurried along toward the town.
There had been some fighting in the streets and a few buildings were
burning. Walking along to the main street of the town, they came
upon a crowd of Japanese who were collected in front of a building
from which the contents were being dragged hastily.
"What is it?" asked Komoru of one of the men.
"Hardware store," replied the other; "we've rifled all of them for
the weapons and explosives."
"Where are all the people?" asked Ethel. "The Americans--are they
killed or captured?"
"They are at home in their houses," answered the man, who seemed
well posted. "I was with the first squad to arrive. We captured the
policemen and then took the telephone switchboard. Japanese
operators are in there now. They have called up every one in town
and explained the situation, and advised the people to stay indoors,
telling them that every house would be burned from which people
emerged or shots were fired. The operators are working on the rural
numbers yet. We hold the telegraph also, and are sending out
exaggerated reports of the size of the Japanese invasion."
* * *
A man wearing a blue sash came hurrying up. He stopped before the
group at the hardware store and gestured for silence.
"The town is well in hand," he said, "and only those of you who are
detailed here as guards need remain longer; the others will get back
to their planes and await the rise of their designated leaders for
the flights of the day.
"Come," said Komoru to his companion. But Ethel did not move. Her
mind was racked with perplexity. Here she was in a city of her own
people. Why should she continue to accompany this young Japanese
whom, despite his gentlemanly conduct, she instinctively feared? Yet
what else could she do? She was dressed in the peculiar attire of
the invaders, and would certainly have trouble in convincing an
American of her identity.
[Illustration: As they passed near other planes, Ethel noted that in
many cases the women were driving.]
"I must ask you to hurry," said Komoru, as the others moved off.
With an effort Ethel gathered her wavering emotions in hand and went
with him. If she must go, she reasoned it were well not to arouse
Komoru's suspicion of her loyalty.
A few minutes later they were again in the air, following the lead
of a plane with bright red wings--the flag-ship, as it were, of the
group.
In a half hour the expedition was approaching Houston. Coming over
the city, the leader circled high and waited until his followers
were better massed.
"Are we going to attack the town?" inquired Ethel, as Komoru asked
her for the water-bottle.
"Oh, no," he replied, "nothing of the sort; we are simply bluffing.
There are a number of expeditions going out to-day. We must make the
appearance of a great invasion."
"How many planes are there all told?"
Komoru smiled. "Not so many," he said.
"But how many?" persisted Ethel.
"Fifteen thousand, maybe," Komoru replied.
"To invade a country with nearly two hundred million inhabitants! We
will surely all be killed."
Komoru smiled.
"By sheer force of numbers," explained Ethel.
"Wait and see," replied her enigmatical companion.
For hours the little aerial squadron sailed through the balmy air of
Texas. They passed over Austin and Waco and Fort Worth and Dallas.
They turned eastward and passed over Texarkana, and thence south to
impress the people of Shreveport.
The excitement evinced in the towns increased as the news of their
flight was wired ahead. They were frequently shot at by groups of
excited citizens or occasional companies of militia, but at the
height and speed at which they were flying the bullets went wide.
One plane was lost. Something must have snapped. It doubled up and
went tumbling downward like a wounded pigeon.
The sun was dropping toward the western horizon. The invaders had
been flying for ten hours. They had been without food or sleep for
thirty-six hours. Save for the brief relaxation of the morning,
Komoru had not taken his hands from the steering wheel, nor his foot
from the engine control since the previous sunset in the Bay of
Tehauntepec.
[Illustration: The two women of Aryan blood worked together in the
cotton field side by side with the Orientals.]
As they passed near other planes, Ethel noted that in many cases the
women were driving. Notwithstanding her dislike for him, the girl
found herself wishing that she could relieve Komoru.
She pondered over his "wait and see" and began to discern a new
possibility in an invasion of thirty thousand Japanese. She tried to
imagine one of the society favorites of her Chicago girlhood sitting
in front of her driving that plane. She remembered distinctly that
aeroplane racing was a part of the diversion of such men and that
five or six hours of driving was considered quite a feat.
The more she considered the man before her, the more she marvelled
at his powers. She confessed he interested her; she wondered why she
disliked him. The only answer that seemed acceptable was that he was
"not her kind."
Towards dusk, they hove in sight of the derricks of the Beaumont oil
region. The leader with the red plane descended in a large meadow.
Komoru was well to the front and brought his plane to earth a few
meters from the red wings. The man in the flag plane who had that
day led them over a thousand miles and a score of cities got out and
stretched himself. With an exclamation of joyful surprise, Ethel
recognized that he was Professor Oshima.
The Japanese camped where they were for the night. The wings of the
planes were guyed to the ground with cordage and little steel
stakes. Beneath such improvised tents the tired aerial cavalrymen
rolled themselves in their sleeping blankets and for twelve hours
the camp was as quiet as a graveyard.
That day had been a great day in history; it was the first
consequential aerial invasion that the world had ever known. While
the arrivals of the morning had been circling in fear-inspiring
flights above the neighboring states, the later starters from the
Japanese squadron had continued to arrive in the oil regions. Like
migrating birds, they settled down over the rich fields and grazing
lands of that wonderful strip of flat, black-soiled prairie that
stretches westward from the south center of Louisiana until it
emerges into the great semi-arid cattle plains of southern Texas.
The region, though one of the richest in the United States, was but
sparsely settled. Save for the few thousand white laborers who were
supported by the oil industry, the whole resident population were
negroes who were worked under imported white foremen in the rice and
truck lands of the region.
The negroes were panic stricken by the Japanese invasion and made
practically no resistance. In two or three days, the country for a
forty-mile radius around Beaumont was cleared of Americans and
practically the entire oil region of Texas with its vast storage
tanks at Port Arthur on the Sabine River, were in the hands of the
invaders.