THE POISON PALL
We all of us remember that fatal day when the news startled all of
Oakland. No one can forget it. At first it read like a newspaper hoax,
in spite of the oft-proclaimed veracity of the press, and we were
inclined to laughter. ’Twixt wonder at the story and its
impossibilities we were not a little enthused at the nerve of the man
who put it over.
It was in the days of dry reading. The world had grown populous and of
well-fed content. Our soap-box artists had come to the point at last
where they preached, not disaster, but a full-bellied thanks for the
millennium that was here. A period of Utopian quietness—no villain
around the corner; no man to covet the ox of his neighbor.
Quiet reading, you’ll admit. Those were the days of the millennium.
Nothing ever happened. Here’s hoping they never come again. And then:
Honestly, we were not to blame for bestowing blessing out of our
hearts upon that newspaperman. Even if it were a hoax, it was at least
something.
At high noon. The clock in the city hall had just struck the hour that
held the post ’twixt a.m. and p.m., a hot day with a sky that was
clear and azure; a quiet day of serene peace and contentment. A
strange and a portent moment. Looking back and over the miracle we may
conjecture that it was the clearness of the atmosphere and the
brightness of the sun that helped to the impact of the disaster.
Knowing what we know now we can appreciate the impulse of natural
phenomena. It was _not_ a miracle.
The spot: Fourteenth and Broadway, Oakland, California.
Fortunately the thousands of employees in the stores about had not yet
come out for their luncheons. The lapse that it takes to put a hat on,
or to pat a ribbon, saved a thousand lives. One shudders to think of
what would have happened had the spot been crowded. Even so, it was
too impossible and too terrible to be true. Such things could not
happen.
At high noon: Two street-cars crossing Fourteenth on Broadway—two cars
with the same joggle and bump and the same aspect of any of a hundred
thousand at a traffic corner. The wonder is—there were so few people.
A Telegraph car outgoing, and a Broadway car coming in. The traffic
policeman at his post had just given his signal. Two automobiles were
passing and a single pedestrian, so it is said, was working his way
diagonally across the corner. Of this we are not certain.
It was a moment that impinged on miracle. Even as we recount it,
knowing, as we do, the explanation, we sense the impossibility of the
event. A phenomenon that holds out and, in spite of our findings,
lingers into the miraculous. To be and not to be. One moment life and
action, an ordinary scene of existent monotony; and the next moment
nothing. The spot, the intersection of the street, the passing
street-cars, the two automobiles, pedestrian, the
policeman—non-existent! When events are instantaneous reports are apt
to be misleading. This is what we find.
Some of those who beheld it, report a flash of bluish white light;
others that it was of a greenish or even a violet hue; and others, no
doubt of stronger vision, that it was not only of a predominant color
but that it was shot and sparkled with a myriad specks of flame and
burning.
It gave no warning and it made no sound; not even a whir. Like a hot
breath out of the void. Whatever the forces that had focused, they
were destruction. There was no Fourteenth and Broadway. The two
automobiles, the two street-cars, the pedestrian, the policeman had
been whiffed away as if they had never existed. In place of the
intersection of the thoroughfares was a yawning gulf that looked down
into the center of the earth to a depth of nausea.
It was instantaneous; it was without sound; no warning. A tremendous
force of unlimited potentiality had been loosed to kinetic violence.
It was the suddenness and the silence that belied credence. We were
accustomed to associate all disaster with confusion; calamity has an
affinity with pandemonium, all things of terror climax into sound. In
this case there was no sound. Hence the wonder.
A hole or bore forty feet in diameter. Without a particle of warning
and without a bit of confusion. The spectators one and all aver that
at first they took it for nothing more than the effect of startled
eyesight. Almost subtle. It was not until after a full minute’s
reflection that they became aware that a miracle had been wrought
before their faces. Then the crowd rushed up and with awe and now
awakened terror gazed down into that terrible pit.
We say “Terrible” because in this case it is an exact adjective. The
strangest hole that man ever looked into. It was so deep that at first
it appeared to have no bottom; not even the strongest eyesight could
penetrate the smoldering blackness that shrouded the depths
descending. It took a stout heart and courage to stand and hold one’s
head on the brink for even a minute.
It was straight and precipitous; a perfect circle in shape; with sides
as smooth as the effect of machine work, the pavement and stone curb
had been cut as if by a razor. Of the two street-cars, two automobiles
and their occupants there was nothing. The whole thing so silent and
complete. Not even the spectators could really believe it.
It was a hard thing to believe. The newspapers themselves, when the
news came clamoring, accepted it with reluctance. It was too much like
a hoax. Not until the most trusted reporters had gone and had wired in
their reports would they even consider it. Then the whole world sat up
and took notice.
A miracle! Like Oakland’s Press we all of us doubted that hole. We had
attained almost everything that was worth the knowing; we were the
masters of the earth and its secrets and we were proud of our wisdom;
naturally we refused such reports all out of reason. It must be a
hoax.
But the wires were persistent. Came corroboration. A reliable
news-gathering organization soon was coming through with elaborate and
detailed accounts of just what was happening. We had the news from the
highest and most reputable authority.
And still we doubted. It was the story itself that brought the
doubting; its touch on miracle. It was too easy to pick on the
reporter. There might be a hole, and all that; but this thing of no
explanation! A bomb perhaps? No noise? Some new explosive? No such
thing? Well, how did we know? It was better than a miracle.
Then came the scientists. As soon as could be men of great minds had
been hustled to the scene. The world had long been accustomed to
accept without quibble the dictum of these great specialists of fact.
With their train of accomplishments behind them we would hardly be
consistent were we to doubt them.
We know the scientist and his habits. He is the one man who will
believe nothing until it is proved. It is his profession, and for that
we pay him. He can catch the smallest bug that ever crawled out of an
atom and give it a name so long that a Polish wrestler, if he had to
bear it, would break under the burden. It is his very knack of getting
in under that has given us our civilization. You don’t baffle a
scientist in our Utopia. It can’t be done. Which is one of the very
reasons why we began to believe in the miracle.
In a few moments a crowd of many thousands had gathered about the
spot; the throng grew so dense that there was peril of some of them
being crowded into the pit at the center. It took all the spare
policemen of the city to beat them back far enough to string ropes
from the corners. For blocks the streets were packed with wondering
thousands. Street traffic was impossible. It was necessary to divert
the cars to a roundabout route to keep the arteries open to the
suburbs.
Wild rumors spread over the city. No one knew how many passengers had
been upon the street-cars. The officials of the company, from the
schedule, could pick the numbers of the cars and their crews; but who
could tell of the occupants?
Telephones rang with tearful pleadings. When the first rumors of the
horror leaked out every wife and mother felt the clutch of panic at
her heartstrings. It was a moment of historical psychology. Out of our
books we had read of this strange phase of human nature that was wont
to rise like a mad screeching thing out of disaster. We had never had
it in Utopia.
It was rumbling at first and out of exaggeration; as the tale passed
farther back to the waiting thousands it gained with the repetition.
Grim and terrible enough in fact, it ratioed up with reiteration.
Perhaps after all it was not psychology. The average impulse of the
human mind does not even up so exactly. In the light of what we now
know it may have been the poison that had leaked into the air; the new
element that was permeating the atmosphere of the city.
At first it was spasmodic. The nearest witnesses of the disaster were
the first victims. A strange malady began to spot out among those of
the crowd who had been at the spot of contact. This is to be noticed.
A strange affliction which from the virulence and rapidity of action
was quite puzzling to the doctors.
Those among the physicians who would consent to statement gave it out
that it was breaking down of tissue. Which of course it was; the new
element that was radiating through the atmosphere of the city. They
did not know it then.
The pity of it! The subtle, odorless pall was silently shrouding out
over the city. In a short time the hospitals were full and it was
necessary to call in medical aid from San Francisco. They had not even
time for diagnosis. The new plague was fatal almost at conception.
Happily the scientists made the discovery.
It was the pall. At the end of three hours it was known that the death
sheet was spreading out over Oakland. We may thank our stars that it
was learned so early. Had the real warning come a few hours later the
death list would have been appalling.
A new element had been discovered; or if not a new element, at least
something which was tipping over all the laws of the atmospheric
envelope. A new combination that was fatal. When the news and the
warning went out, panic fell upon the bay shore.
But some men stuck. In the face of such terror there were those who
stayed and with grimness and sacrifice hung to their posts for
mankind. There are some who had said that the stuff of heroes had
passed away. Let them then consider the case of John Robinson.
Robinson was a telegraph operator. Until that day he was a poor
unknown; not a whit better than his fellows. Now he has a name that
will run in history. In the face of what he knew he remained under the
blanket. The last words out of Oakland—his last message:
“Whole city of Oakland in grip of strange madness. Keep out of
Oakland,”—following which came a haphazard personal commentary:
“I can feel it coming on myself. It is like what our ancestors must
have felt when they were getting drunk—alternating desires of fight
and singing—a strange sensation, light, and ecstatic with a spasmodic
twitching over the forehead. Terribly thirsty. Will stick it out if I
can get enough water. Never so dry in my life.”
Followed a lapse of silence. Then the last words: “I guess we’re done
for. There is some poison in the atmosphere—something. It has leaked,
of course, out of this thing at Fourteenth and Broadway. Dr. Manson of
the American Institute says it is something new that is forming a
fatal combination; but he cannot understand a new element; the
quantity is too enormous.
“Populace has been warned out of the city. All roads are packed with
refugees. The Berkeley Hills are covered as with flies—north, east,
and south and on the boats to Frisco. The poison, whatever it is, is
advancing in a ring from Fourteenth and Broadway. You have got to pass
it to these old boys of science. They are staying with that ring.
Already they have calculated the rate of its advance and have given
warning. They don’t know what it is, but they have figured just how
fast it is moving. They have saved the city.
“I am one of the few men now inside the wave. Out of curiosity I have
stuck. I have a jug and as long as it lasts I shall stay. Strange
feeling. Dry, dry, dry, as if the juice of one’s life cells was
turning into dust. Water evaporating almost instantly. It cannot pass
through glass. Whatever the poison it has an affinity for moisture. Do
not understand it. I have had enough—”
That was all. After that there was no more news out of Oakland. It is
the only word that we have out of the pall itself. It was short and
disconnected and a bit slangy; but for all that a basis from which to
conjecture.
It is a strange and glorious thing how some men will stick to the post
of danger. This operator knew that it meant death; but he held with
duty. Had he been a man of scientific training his information might
have been of incalculable value. However, may God bless his heroic
soul!
What we know is thirst! The word that came from the experts confirmed
it. Some new element of force was stealing or sapping the humidity out
of the atmosphere. Whether this was combining and entering into a
poison could not be determined.
Chemists worked frantically at the outposts of the advancing ring. In
four hours it had covered the city; in six it had reached San Leandro,
and was advancing on toward Haywards.
It was a strange story and incredible from the beginning. No wonder
the world doubted. Such a thing had never happened. We had accepted
the law of judging the future by the past; by deduction; we were used
to sequence and to law; to the laws of Nature. This thing did look
like a miracle; which was merely because—as usually it is with
“miracles”—we could not understand it. Happily, we can look back now
and still place our faith in Nature.
The world doubted and was afraid. Was this peril to spread slowly over
the whole state of California and then on to the—world. Doubt always
precedes terror. A tense world waited. Then came the word of
reassurance—from the scientists:
“Danger past; vigor of the ring is abating. Calculation has deduced
that the wave is slowly decreasing in potentiality. It is too early
yet to say that there will be recessions, as the wave is just reaching
its zenith. What it is we cannot say; but it cannot be inexplicable.
After a little time it will all be explained. Say to the world there
is no cause for alarm.”
But the world was now aroused; as it doubted the truth before, it
doubted now the reassurance. Did the scientists know? Could they have
only seen the future! We know now that they did not. There was but one
man in all the world great enough to foresee disaster. That man was
Charley Huyck.