FREAK WEED STIRS SPECULATIONSan Diego, Mar 7. (AP) An unusual patch of Bermuda grass discovered growing in one of the city parks' flower beds here today caused an excited flurry among observers. Reaching to a height of nearly four feet and defying all efforts of the park gardeners to uproot it, the vivid green interloper reminded fearful spectators of the plague which over ran Los Angeles two years ago. Scientists were reassuring, however, as they pointed out that the giantism of the Los Angeles devil grass was not transmissible by seed andthat no stolons or rhizomes of the abnormal plant had any means of traveling to San Diego, protected as it is by the band of salt confining the Los Angeles growth.
FREAK WEED STIRS SPECULATION
San Diego, Mar 7. (AP) An unusual patch of Bermuda grass discovered growing in one of the city parks' flower beds here today caused an excited flurry among observers. Reaching to a height of nearly four feet and defying all efforts of the park gardeners to uproot it, the vivid green interloper reminded fearful spectators of the plague which over ran Los Angeles two years ago. Scientists were reassuring, however, as they pointed out that the giantism of the Los Angeles devil grass was not transmissible by seed andthat no stolons or rhizomes of the abnormal plant had any means of traveling to San Diego, protected as it is by the band of salt confining the Los Angeles growth.
I was even more confident, for I had seen with my own eyes the shoots grown by Miss Francis from seeds of the inoculated plant. A genuine freak, this time, I thought, and promptly forgot the item.
Would have forgotten it, I should say, had I not an hour later received a telegram, RETURN INSTANTLY CAN USE YOUR IMPRESSIONS OF NEW GRASS LEFFACASE. I knew from the fact he had only used nine of the ten words paid for he considered the situation serious.
The answer prompted by impulse would, I knew, not be transmitted by the telegraph company and on second thought I saw no reason why I should not take advantage of the editor's need. Business was slack and I was overworked; a succession of petty annoyances had driven me almost to a nervous breakdown and a vacation at the expense of the New Los AngelesDaily Intelligencersounded pleasantly restful after the serious work of grappling with industrial affairs. Of course I did not need their paltry few dollars, but at the moment some of my assets were frozen and a weekly paycheck would be temporarily convenient, saving me the bother of liquidating a portion of my smaller investments.
Besides, if, as was barely possible, this new growth was in some unbelievable way an extension of the old, it would of course ruin our sales of pemmican to the tourists and it behooved me to be on the spot. I therefore answered: CONSIDER DOUBLE FORMER SALARY WIRE TRANSPORTATION. Next day the great transcontinental plane pouterpigeoned along the runway of the magnificent New Los Angeles airport.
I was in no great hurry to see the editor, but took a taxi instead to the headquarters of the American Alpinists Incorporated where there was frank worry over the news and acknowledgmentthat no further consignments of pemmican would be accepted until the situation became more settled. I left their offices in a thoughtful mood. Pausing only to wire Fles to unload as much stock as he could—for even if this were only a temporary scare it would undoubtedly affect the market—I finally drove to theIntelligencer.
Knowing Le ffaçasé I hardly expected to be received with either cordiality or politeness, but I was not quite prepared for the actual salute. A replica of his original office had been devised, even to the shabby letters on the door, and he was seated in his chair beneath the gallery of cartoons. He began calmly enough when I entered, speaking in a low, almost gentle tone, helping himself to snuff between sentences, but gradually working up into a quite artistic crescendo.
"Ah, Weener, as you yourself would undoubtedly put it in your inimitable way, a bad penny always turns up. I could not saycanis revertit suam vomitem, for it would invert a relationship—the puke has returned to the dog.
"It is a sad thought that the listless exercise which eventuated in your begetting was indulged in by two whose genes and chromosomes united to produce a male rather than a female child. For think, Weener, if you had been born a woman, with what gusto would you have peddled your flaccid flesh upon the city streets and offered your miserable dogsbody to the reluctant use of undiscriminating customers. You are the paradigmatic whore, Weener, and I weep for the physiological accident which condemns you to sell your servility rather than your vulva. Ah, Weener, it restores my faith in human depravity to have you around to attempt your petty confidence tricks on me once more; I rejoice to find I had not overestimated mankind as long as I can see one aspect of it embodied in your 'homely face and bad complexion,' as the great Gilbert so mildly put it. I shall give orders to triplelock the pettycash, to count the stampmoney diligently, to watch all checks for inept forgery. Welcome back to theIntelligencerand be grateful for nature's mistakes, since they afford you employment as well as existence.
"But enough of the friendly garrulousness of an old man whose powers are failing. Remove your unwholesomelooking person from my sight and convey the decrepit vehicle of your spirit to San Diego. It is but a gesture; I expect no coherent words from your clogged and sputtery pen; but while I am sufficiently like yourself to deceive the public into thinking you have written what they read, I am not yet great enough scoundrel to do so without your visiting the scene of your presumed labors. Go—and do not stop on the way to draw expensemoney from the cashier for she has strict orders not to pay it."
Jealousy, nothing but jealousy, I thought, first of my literary ability and now of my independence of his crazy whims. I turned my back deliberately and walked slowly out, to show my contempt for his rantings.
In my heart, now, there was little doubt the new grass was an extension of the old and it didnt take more than a single look at the overrun park to confirm this. The same creeping runners growing perceptibly from instant to instant, the same brilliant color, the same towering central mass gorged with food. I could have described it line by line and blade by blade in my sleep. I wasted no more time gazing at it, but hurried away after hardly more than a minute's inspection.
I could take no credit for my perceptivity since everyone in San Diego knew as well as I that this was no duplicate freak, but the same, the identical, the fearsome grass. But a quite understandable conspiracy had been tacitly entered into; the knowledge was successfully hushed until property could be disposed of before it became quite worthless. The conspiracy defeated itself, however, with so many frantic sellers competing against each other and the news was out by the time the first of my new columns appeared in theIntelligencer.
The first question which occurred to those of us calm enough to escape panic was, how had the weed jumped the saltband? It was answered simultaneously by many learned professors whose desire to break into print and share the front page with the terrible grass overcame their natural academic reticence. There was no doubt that originally the peculiar voracity ofthe inoculated plant had not been inherited; but it was equally uncontroverted that somehow, during the period it had been halted by the salt, a mutation had happened and now every wind blowing over the weed carried seeds no longer innocent but bearing embryos of the destroyer.
Terror ran before the grass like a herald. The shock felt when Los Angeles went down was multiplied tenfold. Now there was no predictable course men could shape their actions to avoid. No longer was it possible to watch and chart the daily advance of a single body so a partially accurate picture could be formed of what might be expected tomorrow. Instead of one mass there were countless ones; at the whim of a chance wind or bird, seeds might alight in an area apparently safe and overwhelm a community miles away from the living glacier. No place was out of range of the attack; no square foot of land kept any value.
The stockmarket crashed, and I congratulated myself on having sent Fles orders to sell. A day or two later the exchanges were closed and, shortly after, the banks. Business came to a practical standstill. The great industries shut down and all normal transactions of daily life were conducted by means of barter. For the first time in threequarters of a century the farmer was topdog; his eggs and milk, his wheat and corn and potatoes he could exchange for whatever he fancied and on his own terms. Fortunately for starving citydwellers his appetite for manufactured articles and for luxuries was insatiable; their automobiles, furcoats, costumejewelry, washingmachines, files of theNational Geographic, and their periodfurniture left the city flat for the farm, to come back in the more acceptable form of steaks, butter, fowl, and turnips. The whole elaborate structure of money and credit seemed to disappear overnight like some tenuous dream.
The frenzied actions of the humanbeings had no effect on the grass. The saltband still stood inviolate, as did smaller counterparts hastily laid around the earlier of the seedborne growths, but everywhere else the grass swept ahead like a tidalwave, its speed seemingly increased by the months of repressionbehind. It swallowed San Diego in a gulp and leaped beyond the United States to take in Baja California in one swift downward lick. It sprang upon the deserts, whose lack of water was no deterrent, now always sending little groups ahead like paratroopers or fifthcolumnists; they established positions till the main body came up and consolidated them. It curled up the high mountains, leaving only the snow on their peaks unmolested and it jumped over struggling rivers with the dexterity of a girl playing hopscotch.
It lunged eastward into Arizona and Nevada, it swarmed north up the San Joaquin Valley through Fresno and spilled over the lip of the High Sierras toward Lake Tahoe. New Los Angeles, its back protected by the Salton Sea, was, like the original one, subjected to a pincer movement which strangled the promising life from it before it was two years old.
Forced to move again, Le ffaçasé characteristically demanded the burden fall upon the employees of the paper, paying them off in scrip on the poor excuse that no money was available. I saw no future in staying with this sinking ship and eager to be back at the center of things—Fles wrote me that the large stock of pemmican which had been accumulating without buyers could now be very profitably disposed of—I severed my connection for the second time with theIntelligencerand returned to my proper sphere.
This of course did not mean that I failed to follow each step of the grass; such a course would have been quite impossible since its every move affected the life and fortune of every citizen. By some strange freak it spared the entire coast north of Santa Barbara. Whether it had some disinclination to approach saltwater—it had been notably slow in its original advance westward—or whether it was sheer accident, San Luis Obispo, Monterey and San Francisco remained untouched as the cities to the south and east were buried under grassy avalanches. This odd mercy raised queer hopes in some: perhaps their town or their state would be saved.
The prostration of the country which had begun with the first wave of panic could not be allowed to continue. The governmentmoved in and seized, first the banks and then the railroads. Abandoned realestate was declared forfeit and opened to homesteading. Prices were pegged and farmers forced to pay taxes in produce.
Although these measures restored a similitude of life to the nation, it remained but a feeble imitation of its previous self. Many of the idle factories failed to reopen, others moved with painful caution. Goods, already scarce, disappeared almost completely and at the same time a reckless disregard of formerly sacred symbols seized upon the people. The grass was coming, so what good was the lot on which they were paying installments? The grass was coming, so why gather together the dollars to meet the interest on the mortgage? The grass was coming—what was the use of depositing money in the bank which would probably go bust tomorrow?
The inflation would have been worse had it not been for the pegged prices and other stern measures. The glut on the labor market was tremendous and wages reached the vanishing point in a currency which would buy little. Suddenly, the United States, which had so long boasted of being the richest country in the world, found itself desperately poor.
Government work projects did little to relieve the suffering of the proletariat. Deaths from malnutrition mounted and the feeble strikes in the few operating industries were easily and quickly crushed by starving strikebreakers ashamed of their deed yet desperately eager to feed their hungry families. Riots broke out in New York and Detroit, but the police were fortunately wellfed and the arms wielding the blackjacks which crushed the skulls of the undernourished rioters were stout.
There was a sweeping revival of organized religion and men too broke to afford the neighborhood movie flocked to the churches. Brother Paul, now on a national hookup, repeated his exhortations to all Christians, urging them to join their Savior in the midst of the grass. There was great agitation for restraining him; more reserved pastors pointed out that he was responsible for increasing the national suicide rate, butthe Federal Communications Commission took no action against him, possibly because, as some said, it was cheaper to let a percentage of the surplus population find an ecstatic death than to feed it.
On political maps the United States had lost not one foot of territory. Population statistics showed it harbored as many men, women, and children as before. Not one tenth of the national wealth had been destroyed by the grass or a sixth of the country given up to it, yet it had done what seven wars and many vicissitudes had failed to do: it brought the country to the nadir of its existence, to a hopeless despondency unknown at Valley Forge.
At this desperate point the federal government decided it could no longer temporize with the clamor for using atomic power against the grass. All the arguments so weighty at first became insignificant against the insolent facts. It was announced in a Washington pressconference that as soon as arrangements could be made the most fearful of all weapons would be employed.
38.No one doubted the atomicbomb would do the trick, finally and conclusively. The searing, volcanic heat, irresistible penetration, efficient destructiveness and the aftermath of apocalyptic radiation promised the end of the grass.
When I say no one, of course I mean no clearthinking person of vision with his feet on the ground who didnt go deliberately out of his way to look for the dark side of things. Naturally there were crackpots, as there always are, who opposed the use of the bomb for various untenable reasons, and among them I was not surprised to find Miss Francis.
Though her pessimistic and unpopular opinions had been discredited time and again, the newspapers, possibly to enliven their now perpetually gloomy columns with a little humor, gave some space to interviews which, with variations predicated on editorial policy, ran something like this:
Will you tell our readers what you think of using the atom bomb against the grass?I think it at the very best a waste of time; at the worst, extremely dangerous.In what way, Miss Francis?In every way. Did you ever hear of a chain-reaction, young man? Or radioactivity? Can you conceive, among other possibilities—and mind, this is merely a possibility, a quite unscientific guess merely advanced in the vain hope of avoiding one more folly—of the whole mass becoming radioactive, squaring or cubing its speed of growth, or perhaps throwing before it a lethal band miles wide? Mind you, I'm not anticipating any of this, not even saying it is a probability; but these or similar hazards may well attend this illconsidered venture.You speak strongly, Miss Francis. None of the rather fantastic things you predict followed Hiroshima, Nagasaki or Bikini.In the first place, I tried, with apparent unsuccess, to make it clear I'm not predicting. I am merely mentioning possibilities. In the second place, we don't know exactly what were the aftereffects of the previous bombs because of a general inability to correlate cause and effect. I only know that in every case the use of the atomic bomb has been followed at greater or lesser intervals by tidal waves, earthquakes and other 'natural' phenomena. Now do not quote me as saying the Hilo tidal wave was the result of the Nagasaki bomb or the Chicagku earthquake, the Bikini; for I didnt. I only point out that they followed at roughly equal intervals.Then you are opposed to the bomb?Common sense is. Not that that will be a deterrent.What would you substitute for it?If I had a counteragent to the grass ready I would not be wasting time talking to reporters. I am working on one. When it is found, by me or another, it will be a true counteragent, changing the very structure and habit ofCynodon dactylonas the Metamorphizer changed it originally. External weapons,by definition, can at best, at the very best, merely stop the grass—not render it innocuous. Equals fighting equals produce only deadlocks.
Will you tell our readers what you think of using the atom bomb against the grass?
I think it at the very best a waste of time; at the worst, extremely dangerous.
In what way, Miss Francis?
In every way. Did you ever hear of a chain-reaction, young man? Or radioactivity? Can you conceive, among other possibilities—and mind, this is merely a possibility, a quite unscientific guess merely advanced in the vain hope of avoiding one more folly—of the whole mass becoming radioactive, squaring or cubing its speed of growth, or perhaps throwing before it a lethal band miles wide? Mind you, I'm not anticipating any of this, not even saying it is a probability; but these or similar hazards may well attend this illconsidered venture.
You speak strongly, Miss Francis. None of the rather fantastic things you predict followed Hiroshima, Nagasaki or Bikini.
In the first place, I tried, with apparent unsuccess, to make it clear I'm not predicting. I am merely mentioning possibilities. In the second place, we don't know exactly what were the aftereffects of the previous bombs because of a general inability to correlate cause and effect. I only know that in every case the use of the atomic bomb has been followed at greater or lesser intervals by tidal waves, earthquakes and other 'natural' phenomena. Now do not quote me as saying the Hilo tidal wave was the result of the Nagasaki bomb or the Chicagku earthquake, the Bikini; for I didnt. I only point out that they followed at roughly equal intervals.
Then you are opposed to the bomb?
Common sense is. Not that that will be a deterrent.
What would you substitute for it?
If I had a counteragent to the grass ready I would not be wasting time talking to reporters. I am working on one. When it is found, by me or another, it will be a true counteragent, changing the very structure and habit ofCynodon dactylonas the Metamorphizer changed it originally. External weapons,by definition, can at best, at the very best, merely stop the grass—not render it innocuous. Equals fighting equals produce only deadlocks.
And so on. The few reputable scientists who condescended to answer her at all and didnt treat her views with dignified silence quickly demonstrated the absurdity of her objections. Chainreactions and radioactive advanceguard! Sundaysupplement stuff, without the slightest basis of reasoning; not a mathematical symbol or laboratory experiment to back up these fictional nightmares. And not use external weapons, indeed! Was the grass to be hypnotized then? Or made to change its behaviorpatterns through judicious sessions with psychoanalysts stationed along its periphery?
Whether because of Miss Francis' prophesies or not, it would be futile to deny that a certain amount of trepidation accompanied the decision to use the bomb. Residents of Arizona wanted it dropped in California; San Franciscans urged the poetic justice and great utility of applying it to the very spot where the growth originated; all were in favor of the devastation at the farthest possible distance from themselves.
Partly in response to this pressure and partly in consideration of other factors, including the possibility of international repercussions, the Commission to Combat Dangerous Vegetation decided on one of the least awesome bombs in the catalogue. Just a little bomb—hardly more than a toy, a plaything, the very smallest practicable—ought to allay all fears and set everyone's mind at rest. If it were effective, a bigger one could be employed, or numbers of smaller ones.
This much being settled, there was still the question of where to initiate the attack. Edge or heart? Once more there was controversy, but it lacked the enthusiasm remembered by veterans of the salt argument; a certain lassitude in debate was evident as though too much excitement had been dissipated on earlier hopes, leaving none for this one. There was little grumbling or soreness when the decision was finally confirmed to let fall the bomb on what had been Long Beach.
When I read of the elaborate preparations being made to cover the great event, of the special writers, experts, broadcasters, cameramen, I was thankful indeed I was no longer a newspaperman, arbitrarily to be ordered aloft or sent aboard some erratic craft offshore on the bare chance I might catch a comprehensive or distinctive enough glance of the action to repay an editor for my discomfort. Instead, I sat contentedly in my apartment and listened to the radio.
Whether our expectations had been too high or whether all the eyewitnesses became simultaneously inept, I must say the spot broadcast and later newspaper and magazine accounts were uniformly disappointing. It was like the hundredth repetition of an oftentold story. The flash, the chaos, the mushroomcloud, the reverberation were all in precise order; nothing new, nothing startling, and I imagine the rest of the country, as I did, turned away from the radio with a distinct feeling of having been let down.
First observation through telescope and by airplanes keeping a necessarily cautious distance, showed the bomb had destroyed a patch of vegetation about as large as had been expected. Though not spectacular, the bombing had apparently been effective on a comparatively small segment and it was anticipated that as soon as it was safe to come close and confirm this, the action would be repeated on a larger scale. While hundreds more of the baby bombs, as they were now affectionately called, were ordered and preparations made systematically to blast the grass out of existence, the aerial observers kept swooping in closer and closer with cameras trained to catch every aspect of the damage.
There was no doubt an area of approximately four square miles had been utterly cleaned of the weed and a further zone nine times that size had been smashed and riven, the grass there torn and mangled—in all probability deprived of life. Successive reconnoitering showed no changes in the annihilated center, but on the tenth day after the explosion a most startling observation of the peripheral region was made. It had turned a brilliant orange.
Not a brown or yellow, or any of the various shades of decay which Bermuda in its original form took on at times, but a glowing and unearthly, jewellike blaze.
The strange color was strictly confined to the devastated edge of the bombcrater; airmen flying low could see its distinction from the rest of the mass clear and sharp. In the center, nothing; around it, the weird orange; and beyond, the usual and accustomed green.
But on second look, not quite usual, not quite accustomed. The inoculated grass had always been a shade or two more intense than ordinaryCynodon dactylon; this, just beyond the orange, was still more brilliant. Not only that, but it behaved unaccountably. It writhed and spumed upward in great clumps, culminating in enormous, overhanging caps inevitably suggesting the mushroomcloud of the bomb.
The grass had always been cautious of the sea; now the dazzling growth plunged into the saltwater with frenzy, leaping and building upon itself. Great masses of vegetation, piers, causeways, isthmuses of grass offered the illusion of growing out of the ocean bottom, linking themselves to the land, extending too late the lost coast far out into the Pacific.
But this was far from the last aftereffect. Though attention had naturally been diverted from the orange band to the eccentric behavior of the contiguous grass, it did not go unobserved and about a week after its first change of color it seemed to be losing its unnatural hue and turning green again.
Not the green of the great mass, nor of the queer periphery, nor of uninspired devilgrass. It was a green unknown in living plant before; a glassy, translucent green, the green of a cathedral window in the moonlight. By contrast, the widening circle about it seemed subdued and orderly. The fantastic shapes, the tortured writhings, the unnatural extensions into the ocean were no longer manifest, instead, for miles around the ravaged spot where the bomb had been dropped, the grass burst into bloom. Purple flowers appeared—not the usual muddy brown, faintly mauve—but a redviolet, brilliant and clear. The period of generation was abnormally shortened;seed was borne almost instantly—but the seed was a sport.
It did not droop and detach itself and sink into the ground. Instead, tufted and fluffy, like dandelion seed or thistledown, it floated upward in incredible quantities, so that for hundreds of miles the sky was obscured by this cloud bearing the germ of the inoculated grass.
It drifted easily and the winds blew it beyond the confines of the creeping parent. It lit on spots far from the threatening advance and sprouted overnight into great clumps of devilgrass. All the anxiety and panic which had gone before was trivial in the face of this new threat. Now the advance was no longer calculable or predictable; at any moment a spot apparently beyond danger might be threatened and attacked.
Immediately men remembered the exotic growth of flowers which came up to hide some of London's scars after the blitz and the lush plantlife observed in Hiroshima. Why hadnt the allwise scientists remembered and taken them into account before the bomb was dropped? Why had they been blind to this obvious danger? Fortunately the anger and terror were assuaged. Observers soon discovered the mutants were sterile, incapable of reproduction. More than that: though the new clumps spread and flourished and grew rapidly, they lacked the tenacity and stamina of the parent. Eventually they withered and dwindled and were in the end no different from the uninoculated grass.
Now a third change was seen in the color band. The green turned distinctly blue and the sharp line between it and the rest of the weed vanished as the blueness shaded out imperceptibly over miles into the green. The barren spot made by the bomb was covered; the whole mass of vegetation, thousands of square miles of it, was animated by a surging new vigor, so that eastward and southward the rampant tentacles jumped to capture and occupy great new swaths of territory.
Triumphantly Brother Paul castigated the bombardiers and urged repentance for the blasphemy to avert further welldeserved punishment. Grudgingly, one or two papers recalled Miss Francis' warning. Churches opened their doors on specialdays of humiliation and fasting. But for most of the people there was a general feeling of relief; the ultimate in weapons had been used; the grass would wear itself out in good time; meanwhile, they were thankful the effect of the atomicbomb had been no worse. If anything the spirit of the country, despite the great setback, was better after the dropping of the bomb than before.
I was so fascinated by the entire episode that I stayed by my radio practically all my waking hours, much to the distress of Button Fles. Every report, every scrap of news interested me. So it was that I caught an item in a newscast, probably unheard by most, or smiled aside, if heard.Red Egg, organ of the Russian Poultry Farmers, editorialized, "a certain imperialist nation, unscrupulously pilfering the technical advance of Soviet Science, is using atomic power, contrary to international law. This is intolerable to a peace-loving people embracing 1/6 of the earth's surface and the poultrymen of the Collective,Little Red Father, have unanimously protested against such capitalist aggression which can only be directed against the Soviet Union."
The following day,Red Staragreed; on the next,Pravdareviewed the "threatening situation." Two days laterIzvestiadevoted a column to "Blackmail, Peter the Great, Suvarov and Imperialist Slyness." Twentyfour hours after, the Ministerial Council of the Union of Soviet Republics declared a state of war existed—through no action of its own—between the United States and the Soviet Union.
39.At first the people were incredulous. They could not believe the radio reports were anything but a ghastly mistake, an accidental garbling produced by atmospheric conditions. Historians had told them from their schooldays of traditional Russian-American friendship. The Russian Fleet came to the Atlantic coast in 1862 to escape revolutionary infection, but the Americans innocently took it as a gesture of solidarity in the Civil War. The Communist party hadrepeated with the monotony of a popular hymntune at a revival that the Soviet Union asked only to be let alone, that it had no belligerent designs, that it was, as Lincoln said of the modest farmer, desirous only of the land that "jines mine." At no point were the two nations' territories contiguous.
Agitators were promptly jailed for saying the Soviet Union wasnt—if it ever had been—a socialist country; its imperialism stemming directly from its rejection of the socialist idea. As a great imperialist power bursting with natural resources it must inevitably conflict with the other great imperialist power. In our might we had done what we could to thwart Russian ambition; now they seized the opportunity to disable a rival.
Congressmen and senators shredded the air of their respective chambers with screams of outrage. In every speech, "Stab in the back" found an honorable if monotonous place. Zhadanov, boss of the Soviet Union since the death of the sainted Stalin, answered gruffly, "War is no minuet. We do not wait for the capitalist pigs to bow politely before we rise to defend the heritage of Czar Ivan and our own dear, glorious, inspiring, venerated Stalin. Stab in the back! We will stab the fascist lackeys of Morgan, Rockefeller and Jack and Heinze in whatever portion of the anatomy they present to us."
As usual, the recurring prophets who hold their seances between hostilities and invariably predict a quick, decisive war—in 1861 they gave it six weeks; in 1914 they gave it six weeks; in 1941 they gave it six weeks—were proved wrong. They had been overweeningly sure this time: rockets, guided missiles or great fleets of planes would sweep across the skies and devastate the belligerents within three hours of the declaration of war—which of course would be dispensed with. Not a building would remain intact in the great cities nor hardly a civilian alive.
But three hours after Elmer Davis—heading an immediately revived Office of War Information—announced the news in his famous monotone, New York and Chicago and Seattle were still standing and so, three days later, were Moscow and Leningrad and Vladivostok.
Astonishment and unbelief were nationwide. The Empire State, the Palmolive Building, the Mark Hopkins—all still intact? Only when commentators, rummaging nervously among old manuscripts, recalled the solemn gentlemen's agreement never to use heavierthanaircraft of any description should the unthinkable war come, did the public give a heartfelt sigh of relief. Of course! Both the Soviet Union and the United States were nations of unstained honor and, rather than recall their pledged word, would have suffered the loss of a dozen wars. Everyone breathed easier, necks relaxed from the strain of scanning the skies; there would be neither bombs, rockets, nor guided missiles in this war.
As soon as the conviction was established that the country was safe from the memory of Hiroshima, panic gave place to relief and for the first time some of the old spirit was manifest. There was no rush to recruitingstations, but selectiveservice, operating smoothly except in the extreme West, took care of mobilization and the war was accepted, if not with enthusiasm, at least as an inescapable fate.
The coming of the grass had not depleted nor unbalanced the country's resources beyond readjustment, but it had upset the sensitive workings of the national economy. This was tolerable by a sick land—and the grass had made the nation sick—in peacetime; but "war is the health of the state" and the President moved quickly.
All large industries were immediately seized, as were the mines and means of transportation. A basic fiftyfivehour workweek was imposed. A new chief of staff and of naval operations was appointed and the young men went off to camp to train either for implementing or repelling invasion. Then came a period of quiet during which both countries attacked each other ferociously over the radio.
40.In the socialistic orgy of nationalizing business, I was fortunate; Consolidated Pemmican and Allied Concentrates was left in the hands of private initiative.Better than that, it had not been tied down and made helpless by the multiplicity of regulations hampering the few types of endeavor remaining nominally free of regimenting bureaucracy. Opportunity, long prepared for and not, I trust, undeserved, was before me.
In the pass to which our country had come it seemed to me I could be of most service supplying our armed forces with fieldrations. Such an unselfish and patriotic desire one would think easy of realization—as I so innocently did—and I immediately began interviewing numberless officers of the Quartermaster's Department to further this worthy aim.
I certainly believe every corporation must have its rules, otherwise executives would be besieged all day by timewasters. The United States government is surely a corporation, as I always used to say in advocating election of a business administration, and standard procedures and regulations are essential. Still, there ought to be a limit to the number and length of questionnaires to fill out and the number of underlings to interview before a serious businessman can get to see a responsible official.
After making three fruitless trips to Washington and getting exhaustively familiar with countless tantalizing waitingrooms, I became impatient. The man I needed to see was a Brigadier General Thario, but after wasting valuable days and hours I was no nearer reaching him than in the beginning. I had filled out the necessary forms and stated the nature of my business so often I began to be alarmed lest my hand refuse to write anything else and I be condemned for the rest of my life to repeat the idiotic phrases called for in the blank spaces.
I am afraid I must have raised my voice in expressing my exasperation to the young lady who acted as receptionist and barrier. At any rate she looked startled, and I think pressed a button on her desk. A pinkfaced, whitemustached gentleman came hastily through the door behind her. The jacket of his uniform fitted snugly at the waist and his bald head was sunburnt and shiny.
"What's this? What's this? ... going on here?"
I saw the single star on his shoulderstraps and ventured, "General Thario?"
He hid his white mustache with a forefinger pink as his cheeks. "Yes. Yes. But you must have an appointment to speak to me. That's the rule, you know. Must have an appointment." He appeared extremely nervous and harassed, his eyes darting back to the refuge of his office, but he was evidently held to the spot by whatever distress animated his receptionist.
"General Thario," I persisted firmly, "I quite appreciate your viewpoint, but I have been trying for days to get such an appointment with you on a matter of vital concern and I have been put off every time by what I can only describe as redtape. I am sorry to say so, General Thario, but I must repeat, redtape."
He looked more worried than before and his eyes ranged over the room for some escape. "Know just how you feel," he muttered, "Know just how you feel. Horrible stuff. Swaddled in it here. Simply swaddled in it. Strangled." He cleared his throat as though to disembarrass it of a garrote. "But, uh, hang it, Mr—"
"Weener. Albert Weener. President of Consolidated Pemmican and Allied Concentrates Incorporated."
"—Well, you know, Mr. Weener ... man your position ... appreciate absolute necessity certain amount of routine ... keep the cranks out, otherwise swarming with them, simply swarming ... wartime precautions ... must excuse me now ... terribly rushed ... glad to have met—"
Swallowing the rest of the sentence and putting his hand over his mouth lest he should inadvertently regurgitate it, he started for his office. "General Thario," I pleaded, "a moment. Consider our positions reversed. I have long since established my identity, my responsibility. I want nothing for myself; I am here doing a patriotic duty. Surely enough of the routine you mention has been complied with to permit me to speak to you for five or ten minutes. Do for one moment as I say, General, and put yourself in my place. Think of the discouragementyou as a citizen would feel to be hampered, perhaps more than is necessary."
He took his hand down from his mouth and looked at me out of blue eyes so pale as to be almost colorless. "But hang it, you know, Mr Weener ... highly irregular. Sympathize completely, but consider ... don't like being put in such a position ... why don't you come back in the morning?"
"General," I urged, flushed with victory, "give me ten minutes now."
He collapsed. "Know just how you feel ... wanted to be out in the field myself ... no desk soldier ... lot of nonsense if you ask me. Come in, come in."
In his office I explained the sort of contract I was anxious to secure and assured him of my ability to fulfill its terms. But I could see his mind was not intent upon the specifications for fieldrations. Looking up occasionally from a dejected study of his knees, he kept inquiring, in elliptical, practically verbless questions, how many men my plant employed, whether I had a satisfactory manager and if a knowledge of chemistry was essential to the manufacture of concentrates; evading or discussing in the vaguest terms the actual business in hand.
However, he seemed very friendly and affable toward me personally once the chill air of the waitingroom had been left behind and as Button Fles had advised me insistently to entertain without regard to expense any officials with whom I came in contact, I thought it politic to invite him to dinner. He demurred at first, but at length accepted, instructing his secretary to phone his wife not to expect him home early. I suggested Mrs Thario join us, but he shook his head, muttering, "No place for women, Mr Weener, no place for women." Whether this referred to Washington or the restaurant where we were going or to his life largely was not clear.
Wartime Washington was in its usual chaotic turmoil and it was impossible to get a taxi, so we had to walk. But the general did not seem at all averse to the exercise. It seemed to me he rather enjoyed returning the salutes with the greatest punctilio and flourish. On our way we came to one of thecapital's most famous taverns and I thought I detected a hesitancy in his stride.
Now I am not a drinking man myself. I limit my imbibing to an occasional glass of beer on account of the yeast it contains, which I consider beneficial. I hope, however, I am no prig or puritan and so I asked casually if he would care to stop in for an appetizer.
"Well, now you mention it, Mr Weener ... hum ... fact is ... don't mind if I do."
While I confined myself to my medicinal beverage the general conducted a most remarkable raid on the bar. As I have hinted, he was in demeanor a mild appearing, if not indeed a timid man. In the course of an hour's conversation no word of profanity, such as is affected by many military men, had crossed his lips. The framed photograph of his wife and daughters on his desk and his respectful references to women indicated he was not the type of soldier who lusts for rapine. But seated before that dull mahogany bar, whatever inhibitions, whatever conventional shackles, whatever selfdenials and repressions had been inculcated fell from him swiftly and completely. He barked his orders at the bartender, who seemed to know him very well, as though he were addressing a parade formation of badly disciplined troops.
Not only did General Thario drink enormously, but he broke all the rules I had ever heard laid down about drinking. He began with a small, squat glass, which I believe is called an Oldfashioned glass, containing half cognac and half ryewhisky. He followed this with a tall tumbler—"twelve full ounces ... none of your eightounce thimbles ... not trifled with"—of champagne into which the bartender, upon his instructions and under his critical eye, poured two jiggers of tropical rum. Then he wiped his lips with a handkerchief pulled from his sleeve and began with a serious air on a combination of benedictine and tequila. The more he imbibed, the longer, more complete and more coherent his sentences became. He dropped his harassed air; his abdomen receded, his chest expanded, bringing to my notice for the first time the rows of ribbonswhich confirmed his earlier assertion that he was not a desk soldier.
He was sipping curaçao liberally laced with applejack when he suggested we have our dinner sent in rather than leave this comfortable spot. "The fact of the matter is, Mr Weener—I'm going to call you Albert if you don't mind—"
I said I didnt mind with all the heartiness at my command.
"The fact of the matter is, Albert, I have devoted my unfortunate life to two arts: the military and the potatory. As you may have noticed, most of the miserable creatures on the wrong side of a bar adopt one of two reprehensible courses: either they treat drinking as though the aim of blending liquids were to imitate some French chef's fiddlefaddle—a dash of bitters, a squirt of orange, an olive, cherry, or onion wrenched from its proper place in the saladbowl, a twist of lemonpeel, sprig of mint or lump of sugar and an eyedropperful of whisky; or else they embrace the opposite extreme of vulgarity and gulp whatever rotgut is thrust at them to addle their undiscerning brains and atrophy their undiscriminating palates. Either practice is foreign to my nature and philosophy. I believe the happiest combinations of liquors are simple ones, containing no more than two ingredients, each of which should be noble—that is to say, drinkable in its own right."
He raised his fresh glass, containing brandy and arrack. "No doubt you have observed a catholicity in my taste; I range through the whole gamut from usquebaugh to sake, though during the present conflict for obvious patriotic reasons, I cross vodka from my list, while as a man born south of the Mason-Dixon Line, sir, I leave gin to Nigras."
I must say, though somewhat startled by his manner of imbibing, I was inclined to like General Thario, but I was impatient to discuss the matter of a contract for Consolidated Pemmican. Every time I attempted to bring the subject round to it he waved me grandly aside. "Dinner," he confirmed, when the waiters brought in their trays. "Yes; no drink is complete without a little bit of the right food to garnish it. Eating in moderation I approve of; but mark my words, Albert, theman who takes a meal on an empty stomach is digging his grave with his teeth."
If he would not talk business I could only hope his amiability would carry over till I saw him again in his office tomorrow. I settled down as far as I could, simply to enjoy his company. "You may have been surprised at my referring to my life as unfortunate, Albert, but it is a judicious adjective. Vilely unfortunate. I come of a military family, you know; you will find footnotes mentioning the Tharios in the history of every war this country has had."
He finished what was in his glass. "My misfortunes, like Tristram Shandy's, began before my birth—and in the same way, exactly the same way. My father was a scholar and a gentleman who dreamed his life away over the campaigns of the great captains instead of attempting to become a great captain himself. I do not condemn him for this: the organization of the army is such as to encourage impracticality and inadvertence, but the consequences were unfortunate for me. He named me after his favorite heroes, Stuart Hannibal Ireton Thario, and so aloof was he from the vulgarities of everyday life that it was not until my monogram was ordered painted upon my first piece of luggage that the unfortunate combination of my initials was noted. Hannibal and Ireton promptly suppressed in the interests of decency, nevertheless at West Point my surname was twisted by fellow classmates into Lothario, giving it a connotation quite foreign to my nature. I lived down both vexations only to encounter a third. Though Ireton remained successfully concealed, the Hannibal leaked out and when, during the World War, I had the misfortune to lead a company which was decimated"—his hand strayed to the ribbons on his chest—"behind my back the enlistedmen called me Cannibal Thario."
He began discussing another drink. "Of one thing I'm resolved: my son shall not suffer as I have suffered. I did not send him to West Point so he might win decorations on the field of valor and then be shunted off to sit behind an unsoldierly desk. I broke with tradition when I kept him from a militarycareer, quite on purpose, just as I was thinking of his welfare and not some silly foible of my own when I called him by the simplest name I could find."
"What is your son's name?" I was constrained to ask.
"George," he answered proudly, "George Thario. There is no nickname for George as far as I know."
"And he's not in the army now?" I queried, more in politeness than interest.
"No, and I don't intend he shall be." The general's pink face grew pinker with his vehemence. "Albert, there are plenty of dunderheads and duffers like me in the country who are good for nothing better than cannonfodder. Let them go and be killed. I'm willing enough—only an idiotic General Staff has booted me into the Quartermaster Corps for which I am no more fitted than to run an academy for lady marines—but I'm not willing for a fine sensitive boy, a talented musician like George to suffer the harsh brutalities of a trainingcamp and battlefield."
"The draft ..." I began tentatively.
"If George had a civilian position in an essential industry—say one holding a contract with the army for badly needed fieldrations...."
"I should like to meet your son," I said. "I have been looking around for some time for a reliable manager...."
"George might consider it." General Thario squinted his glass against the light. "I'll have him stop by your hotel tomorrow."
The little radio behind the bar, which had been mumbling to itself for hours, spoke loudly. "We interrupt this program to bring you a newsflash: Eire has declared war on the Soviet Union. I repeat, war has been declared on the Union of Soviet Republics by Eire. Keep tuned to this station for further details. We return you now to our regular program."
There was an absent pattering of applause and General Thario stood up gravely, glass in hand. "Gallant little Eire—or, if I may be permitted once the indulgence of using the good old name we know and love so well—brave old Ireland. Whenthe world was at war, despite every provocation, she stayed peaceful. Now that the world is disgracefully pacific—and you have all heard foreign ministers unanimously declaring their countries neutral—so fast did they rush to the microphones that they were still panting when they went on the air—when the whole world was cautious, Ireland, true to her traditions, joined the just cause. Gentlemen, I give you our fighting ally, Eire."
Departing from his usual custom, he drank the toast in one gulp, but no one else in the room paid any attention. I considered this lack of enthusiasm for a courageous gesture quite unworthy and meditated for a moment on the insensitivity into which our people seemed to have sunk.
As the evening went on, the general grew more and more affable and, if possible, less and less reticent. He had, he assured me, been the constant victim, either of men or of circumstances. At the military academy he had trained for the cavalry only to find himself assigned to the tank corps. He had reconciled himself, pursued his duties with zeal, and was shunted off to the infantry, where, swallowing chagrin, he had led his men bravely into a crossfire from machineguns. For this he got innumerable decorations and a transfer to the Quartermaster's Department. His marriage to the daughter of an influential politician should have assured peacetime promotion, but the nuptials coincided with an election depriving the family's party of power.
Now another war had come and he was a mere brigadier pigeonholed in an unimportant office with juniors broadly hinting at his retirement while classmates were leading divisions and even army corps to glorious victory on the field of battle. At least, they would have been leading them to glorious victory if there had been any action at all.
"Invade," insisted General Thario, becoming sufficiently stirred by his fervor to lapse into sober incoherence. "Invade them before they invade us. Aircraft out ... gentlemen's agreement ... quite understand ... well ... landingbarges ... Bering Sea ... strike south ... shuttle transports... drive left wing TransSiberian ... holding operation by right and center ... abc ..."
No doubt it was a pity he was deprived of the opportunity to try these tactics. I was one of the few who had not become a military theoretician upon the outbreak of the war, but to my lay mind his plan sounded feasible. Nevertheless, I was more interested in the possible contract for food concentrates than in any strategy, no matter how brilliant. I'm afraid I showed my boredom, for the general abruptly declared it was time to go home.
41.Iwas a little dubious that after all the drinking and confidences he would remember to send his son around, and to tell the truth, in the calm morning, I felt I would not be too sorry if he didnt, for he had not given me a very high opinion of that young man. What on earth Consolidated Pemmican could do with a musician and a draftevader as generalmanager—even if the title, as it must be, were purely honorary—I couldnt imagine.
I had been long up, shaved and breakfasted and had attended to my correspondence, before the telephone rang and George Thario announced himself at my disposal.
He was what people call a handsome young man. That is, he was big and burly and slow and his eyelashes were perceptible. His hair was short and he wore no hat, but lounged about the room with his hands, thumbs out, in his jacketpockets, looking at me vaguely through the curling smoke from a bent pipe. I had never seen anyone look less like a musician and I began to wonder if his father had been serious in so describing him.
"I don't like it," he announced abruptly.
"Don't like what, Mr Thario?" I inquired.
"Joe to you," he corrected. "Mister from you to me belies our prospective relationship. Just call me Joe."
"I thought your name was George."
"Baptismal—whim of the Old Man's. But it's a stuffy label—noshortening it, you know, so the fellows all call me Joe. Chummier. Don't like the idea of evading the draft. Shows a lack of moral courage. By rights I ought to be a conchie, but that would just about kill the Old Lady. She's in a firstclass uproar as it is—like to see me in the frontlines right now, bursting with dulce et decorum. I don't believe it would bother the Old Man any if I sat out the duration in a C O camp, but it'd hurt his job like hell and the poor old boy is straining his guts to get into the trenches and twirl a theoretical saber. So I guess I'm slated to be your humble and obedient, Mr Weener."
"I'll be delighted to have you join our firm," I said wryly, for I felt he would be a completely useless appendage. In this I am glad to say I did him an injustice, for though he never denied his essential lack of interest in concentrates and the whole process of moneymaking, he proved nevertheless—at such times as he chose to attend to his duties—a faithful and conscientious employee, his only faults being lack of initiative and a tendency to pamper the workers in the plant.
But I have anticipated; at the moment I looked upon him only as a liability to be balanced in good time by the asset of his father's position. It was therefore with irritation I listened to his insistence on my coming to the Thario home that afternoon to meet his mother and sisters. I had no desire for purely social intercourse, last evening's outing being in the nature of a business investment and it seemed superfluous to be forced to extend courtesies to an entire family because of involvement with one member.
However great my reluctance I felt I couldnt afford to risk giving offense and so at fouroclock promptly I was in Georgetown, using the knocker of a door looking like all the other doors on both sides of the street.
"I'm Winifred Thario and youre the chewinggum man—no, wait a minute, I'll get it—the food concentrate man who's going to make Joe essential to the war effort. Do come in, and excuse my rudeness. I'm the youngest, you know, except for Joe, so everybody excuses me." Her straight, blond hair looked dead. The vivacity which lit her windburned face seemed afalse vivacity and when she showed her large white teeth I thought it was with a calculated effort.
She led me into a livingroom peopled like an Earlyvictorian conversationpiece. Behind a low table, in a rockingchair, sat a large, fullbosomed woman with the same dead hair and weatherbeaten cheeks, the only difference being that the blondness of her hair was mitigated by gray and in her face were the tiny broken red lines which no doubt in time would come to Winifred.
"This is Mama," said Winifred, accenting the second syllable strongly and contriving at once to be vivacious and reverent.
Mama inclined her head toward me without the faintest smile, welcoming or otherwise, placing her hand as she did so regally upon the teacozy, as upon a royal orb.
"Mrs Thario," I said, "I am delighted to meet you."
Mama found this beneath her condescension.
"And this is Constance, the general's firstborn," introduced Winifred, still retaining her liveliness despite Mama's low temperature. Constance was the perfect connectinglink between Winifred and her mother, not yet gray but soon to be so, without Winifred's animation, but with the same voluntary smile showing the same white teeth. She rose and shook my hand as she might have shaken a naughty puppy, with a vigorous sidewise jerk, disengaging the clasp quickly.
"And this," announced Winifred brightly, "is Pauline."
To say that Pauline Thario was beautiful would be like saying Mount Everest is high. In her, the blond hair sparkled like newly threshed straw, the teeth were just as white and even, but they did not seem too large for her mouth, and her complexion was faultless as a cosmetic ad. She was an unbelievably exquisite painting placed in an appropriate frame.
And yet ... and yet the painting had a quality of unreality about it, as though it were the delineation of a madonna without child, or of a nun. There was no vigor to her beauty, no touch of the earthiness or of blemish necessary to make the loveliness real and bring it home. She did not offer me herhand, but bowed in a manner only slightly less distant than her mother's.
I sat down on the edge of a petitpoint chair, thoroughly illatease. "You must tell us about your pills, Mr Weener," urged Winifred.
"Pills?" I asked, at a loss.
"Yes, the thingamyjigs youre going to have Joe make for you," explained Constance.
Mama made a loud trumpeting noise which so startled me I half rose from my seat. "Damned slacker!" she exclaimed, looking fiercely right over my head.
"Now, Mama—bloodpressure," enjoined Pauline in a colorless voice.
Mama relapsed into immobility and Winifred went on, quite as if there had been no explosion. "Are you married, Mr Weener?"
I said I was not.
"Then here's our chance for Pauline," decided Winifred. "Mr Weener, how would you like to marry Pauline?"
I could do nothing but smile uncomfortably. Was this the sort of conversation habitually carried on in their circle or were they quite mad? Constance mentioned with apparent irrelevance, "Winifred is so giddy," and Pauline smiled at me understandingly.
But Winifred went on, "Weve been trying to marry Pauline off for years, you know. She's wonderful to look at, but she hasnt any sexappeal."
Mama snorted, "Damned vulgar thing to have."
"Would you like some tea, Mr Weener?" asked Constance.
"Tea! He looks like a secret cocacola guzzler to me! Are you an American Mr Uh?" Mama demanded fiercely, deigning for the first time to address me.
"I was born in California, Mrs Thario," I assured her.
"Pity. Pity. Damned shame," she muttered.
I was partially relieved from my uneasiness by the appearance of George Thario, who bounded in, waved lightly at hissisters and kissed his mother just below her hairline. "My respectful duty, Mama," he greeted.
"Damned hypocrisy. You did your duty youd be in the army."
"Bloodpressure," warned Constance.
"Have they made you thoroughly miserable, Mr Weener? Don't mind them—there's something wrong with all the Tharios except the Old Man. Blood gone thin from too much intermarriage."
"Just like incest," exclaimed Winifred. "Don't you think incest's fascinating, Mr Weener? Eugene O'Neill and all that sort of thing?"
"Morbid," objected Constance.
"Damned nonsense," grunted Mama.
"Cream or lemon, Mr Weener?" inquired Constance. Mama, moved by a hospitable reflex, filled a grudging cup.
"Cream, please," I requested.
"Turn it sour," muttered Mama, but she poured the cream and handed the cup to Constance who passed it to Pauline who gave it to me with a gracious smile.
"You just mustnt forget to keep Pauline in mind, Mr Weener; she would be a terrific help when you become horribly rich and have to do a lot of stuffy entertaining."
"Really, Winifred," protested Constance.
"Help him to the poorhouse and a damned good riddance."
I spent another uneasy fifteen minutes before I could decently make my departure, wondering whether I hadnt made a mistake in becoming involved with the Tharios at all. But there being no question of the solidity of the general's position, I decided, since it was not afterall incumbent upon me to continue a social connection with them, to bear with it and confine my acquaintance as far as possible to Joe and his father.
42.As soon as the contracts were awarded the struggle began to obtain necessary labor and raw materials. We were straining everything to do a patriotic service to the country in time of war, but we came up against the competition for these essentials by ruthless capitalists who had no thought but to milk the government by selling them supplies at an enormous profit. Even with the wholehearted assistance of General Thario it was an endless and painful task to comply with, break through, or evade the restrictions and regulations thrown up by an uncertain and slowmoving administration, restrictions designed to aid our competitors and hamper us. Yet we got organized at last and by the time three Russian marshals had been purged and the American highcommand had been shaken up several times, we had doubled the capacity of our plant and were negotiating the purchase of a new factory in Florida.
I set aside a block of stock for the general, but its transfer was a delicate matter on account of the indefatigable nosiness of the government and I approached his son for advice. "Alberich!" exclaimed Joe incomprehensibly. "Just wrap it up and mail it to him. Mama, God bless her, takes care of all financial transactions anyway." And doubtless with great force, I thought.
Such directness, I pointed out, might have embarrassing repercussions because of inevitably smallminded interpretation if the facts ever became public. We finally solved the problem by putting the gift in George Thario's name, he making a will leaving it to the general. I informed his father in a guarded letter of what we had done and he replied at great length and somewhat indiscreetly, as the following quotation may show:
"... In spite of pulling every handy and unhandy wire I am still billeted on this ridiculous desk. The General Staff is the most incompetent set of blunderers ever to wear military uniform since Bull Run. They've never heard of Foch, much less of Falkenhayn and Mackensen, to say nothing of Rommel,Guderian or Montgomery. They rest idly behind their Washington breastworks when the order of the day should be attack, attack, and again attack; keeping the combat entirely verbal, weakening the spirit of our forces and waiting supinely for the enemy to bring the war to us...."
Although I was too much occupied with the press of business to follow the daytoday progress of hostilities, there was little doubt the general was justified in his strictures. The war was entirely static. With fear of raids by marauding aircraft allayed, the only remaining uneasiness of the public had been whether the words "heavier than air craft" covered robot or V bombs. But when weeks had passed without these dreadful missiles whistling downward, this anxiety also went and the country settled down to enjoy a wartime prosperity as pleasant, notwithstanding the fiftyhour week, rationing, and the exorbitant incometax, as the peacetime panic had been miserable. In my own case Consolidated Pemmican was quoted at 38 and I was on my way, in spite of all hampering circumstances, to reap the benefits of foresight and industry. Unique among great combats, not a shot had so far been exchanged and everyone, except cranks, began to look upon the academic conflict as an unalloyed benefit.
Gradually the war began leaving the frontpages, military analysts found themselves next to either the chessproblems, Today's Selected Recipe, or the weekly horoscope; people once more began to concern themselves with the grass. It now extended in a vast sweep from a point on the Mexican coast below the town of Mazatlan, northward along the slope of the Rocky Mountains up into Canada's Yukon Province. It was wildest at its point of origin, covering Southern California and Nevada, Arizona and part of New Mexico, and it was narrowest in the north where it dabbled with delicate fingers at the mouth of the Mackenzie River. It had spared practically all of Alaska, nearly all of British Columbia, most of Washington, western Oregon and the seacoast of northern California.
Why it surged up to the Rockies and not over them when ithad conquered individually higher mountains was not understood, but people were quick once more to take hope and remember the plant's normal distaste for cold or think there was perhaps something in the rarefied atmosphere to paralyze the seeds or inhibit the stolons, so preventing further progress. Even through the comparatively low passes it came at such a slow pace methods tried fruitlessly in Los Angeles were successful in keeping it back. Everyone was quite ready to wipe off the Far West if the grass were going to spare the rest of the country.
General Thario's indiscreet letters kept coming. If anything, they increased in frequency, indiscretion, and length as his continued frustration in securing a field command was added to his helpless wrath at the generalstaff's ineptitude. "... They have got hold of that odd female scientist, Francis," he wrote, "and have made her turn over her formula for making grass go crazy. It's to be used as a war weapon, but how or where I don't know. Just the sort of silly rot a lot of armchair theorists would dream up...."
Later he wrote indignantly: "... They are sending a group of picked men to Russia to inoculate the grasses on the steppes with this Francis stuff. Sheer waste of trained men; bungling incompetence. Why not send a specially selected group of hypnotists to persuade the Russians to sue for peace? It would be better to have given them Mills bombs and let them blow up the Kremlin. Time and effort and good men thrown away ..."
Still later he wrote with unconcealed satisfaction: "... Well, that silly business of inoculating the steppes came to exactly nothing. Our fellows got through of course and did their job, but nothing happened to the grass. Either Francis gave them the wrong formula (possibly mislaid the right one in her handbag) or else what worked in California wouldn't do elsewhere. She is busy trying to explain herself to a military commission right now. For my part they can either shoot her or put her in charge of the WAC. It's of no moment. You can't fight a determined enemy with sprayguns and formulas. Attack with infantry by way of Siberia ..."
43.While everyone, except possibly General Thario and others in similar position, was enjoying the new comradeinarms atmosphere the abortive war had brought on, a sudden series of submarine attacks on the Pacific Fleet provided a disagreeable jolt and ended the bloodless stage of the conflict. Tried and proved methods of detection and defense became useless; the warships were nothing more than targets for the enemy's torpedoes.
In quick succession the battleshipsMontana,Louisiana,Ohio, andNew Hampshirewere sunk, as were the carriersGettysburg,Antietam,Guadalcanal, andChapultepecas well as the cruisersManitowoc,Baton Rouge,Jackson,Yonkers,Long Beach,EvanstonandPortsmouth, to say nothing of the countless destroyers and other craft. Never had the navy been so crippled and the people, presaging correctly a forthcoming invasion, suffered a new series of terrors which was only relieved by the news of the Russian landings on the California coast at Cambria, San Simeon and Big Sur.
"... What did I tell you? What did I tell them, the duffers and dunderheads? We could have been halfway across Asia by now; instead we waited and hemmed and hawed till the enemy, from the sheer weight of our inertia, was forced to attack. The whole crew should be courtmartialed and made to study the campaigns of Generals Shafter and Wheeler as punishment." General Thario's always precise handwriting wavered and trembled with the violence of his disgust.
An impalpable war, pregnant with annihilating scientific devices and other unseen bogies was one thing; actual invasion of the sacred soil over which Old Glory flew, and by presumptuous foreigners who couldnt even speak English, was quite another. At once the will of the nation stiffened and for the first time something approaching enthusiasm was manifest. Cartoonists, moved by a common impulse, unanimously drew pictures of Uncle Sam rolling up his sleeves and preparing to give the pesky interlopers a good trouncing before hurling them back into the Pacific.
Unfortunately the presence of the grass prevented quick eviction of the unwelcome visitors. Only a small portion of the armed forces was based on the Pacific coast, because of the logistical problems presented by inadequacies of supply and transportation. Of these only a fraction could be sent to the threatened places for fear dispersions of the main body would prove disastrous if the landings were feints. Thus the enemy came ashore practically unopposed at his original landingpoints and secured small additional beachheads at Gorda, Lucia, Morro Bay and Carmel.
East of the grass there were whole armies who had completed basic training, fit and supple. The obvious answer to the invasion was to load them on transports and ship them to the theater of operations. Unfortunately the agreement not to use heavierthanaircraft was an insuperable bar to this action.
That the pact had never been designed to prevent nations from defending their soil against an invader was certain; thousands of voices urged that we keep the spirit of the treaty and disregard the letter. No one could expect us to sit idly by and let our homeland be invaded because of overfinicky interpretation of a diplomatic document.
But in spite of this clear logic, the American people were swept by a wave of timidity. "If we use airplanes," they argued, "so will the Russians; airplanes mean bombs; bombs mean atombombs. Better to let the Russians hold what advantage their invasion has given them than to have our cities destroyed, our population wiped out, our descendants—if any—born with six heads or a dozen arms as a result of radioactivity."
According to General Thario, for a while it was touchandgo whether the President would yield to the men of vision or the others. But in the end apprehension and calculation ordained that every effort must be made to reinforce the defense of the West Coast—except the effective one.
Of course every dirigible was commandeered and work speeded up on those under construction; troopships, heedless of their vulnerability, rushed for the Panama Canal; whilenegotiations were opened with Mexico, looking toward transporting divisions over its territory to a point south of the weed.
While confusion and defeatism took as heavy a toll of the country's spirit as an actual defeat on the battlefield, the Russians slowly pushed their way inland and consolidated their positions. The American units offered valiant resistance, but little by little they were driven northward until a fairly fixed front was established south of San Francisco from the ocean to the bay and a more fluid one from the bay to the edge of the grass. Army men, like the public, were suspicious of the enemy's apparent contentment with this line, for they reasoned it presaged further landings to the north.
General Thario's jubilation contrasted with the common gloom. "At last the blunderers have given me active duty. I have a brigade in the Third Army—finest of all. Can't write exactly where I'm stationed, but it is not far from a wellknown city noted for its altitude, located in a mining state. Brigade is remarkably fit, considering, and the men are rearing to go. Keep your ear open for some news—it won't be long...."
44.The news was of the heroic counterlandings. The entire fleet, disdainful of possible submarine action, stood off from the rear of the Russian positions, bombarding them for fortyeight hours preliminary to landing marines who fought their way inland to recapture nearly half the invaded territory. Simultaneously the army below San Francisco pushed the Russians back and made contact at some points with the marines. The enemy was reduced to a mere foothold.
But the whole operation proved no more than a rearguard action. As General Thario wrote, "We are fighting on the wrong continent." Joe was even broader and more emphatic. "It's a putup job," he complained, "to keep costplus plants like this operating. If they called off their silly war (Beethoven down in the cellar during the siege of Vienna expresses the right attitude) and went home, the country would fall backinto depression, we'd have some kind of revolution and everybody'd be better off."