THE WAR WITH THE NEWTS

Karel Čapek

 

 

BOOK ONE

 

ANDRIAS SHEUCHZERI

 

1 - THE STRANGE BEHAVIOUR OF CAPTAIN VAN TOCH

 

            If you looked up the little island of Tana Masa on the map you would find it just on the Equator, not far south of Sumatra; but if you were on the deck of the Kandong Bandoeng and asked its captain, J. van Toch, what he thought of this Tana Masa where you've just dropped anchor he would first curse for a short while and then he would tell you that it's the dirtiest hole all the Sunda Islands, even more loathsome than Tana Bala and easily as damnable as Pini or Banyak; that the only apology for a human being that lives there - not counting these louse-ridden Bataks, of course - is a drunken commercial agent, a cross between a Cuban and a Portuguese, and an even bigger thief, pagan and pig than the whole of Cuba and the whole of the white race put together; if there's anything in this world that's damnable then it's the damned life on this damned Tana Masa.  And then, you might cautiously ask him why it is that he's just dropped his damned anchor as if he wanted to spend three damned days here; at which he would snort in irritation and grumble something about not being so damned stupid as to sail all the way to Kandon Bandoeng just to get this damned copra or palm oil, and there's nothing else here, but I've got my damned orders, and you will please be so kind as to mind your own damned business.  And he would carry on cursing as widely and as fully as you might expect from a sea captain who was no longer young but still lively for his age. 

            But if, instead of asking all sorts of impertinent questions, you left Captain J. van Toch to grumble and curse by himself you might find out something more.  Surely it's obvious the man needs a rest.  Just leave him alone, he can sort out his foul mood by himself.  "Listen!" the captain said suddenly.  "Those damned Jew-boys back in Amsterdam, all they seem to think about is pearls.  Have a look around you; can you see any pearls?  They say the people are crazy round here for pearls and that sort of thing."  At this point the captain spat in anger.  "We know all about that, load up with pearls!  That's because you people always want to start a war or something.  All you're worried about is money.  And then you call it a crisis."  For a short while, Captain J. van Toch considered whether he ought to start discussing political economics, considering that that's all they ever do talk about nowadays.  But it's too hot and languid to talk about that sort of thing here, anchored off Tana Masa; so the captain merely waved his hand and grumbled: "That's what they say, pearls!  In Ceylon they've got enough pearls piled up to last them for five years, on Formosa they've put a ban on gathering them - and so they say to me, Captain van Toch, go and see if you can find somewhere new to gather pearls.  Go on down to those damned little islands, you might find whole bays full of oysters down there ... "  The captain pulled out his light-blue handkerchief and blew his nose in contempt.  "Those rats in Europe, they think there's still something to find down here, something they don't already know about.  God, what a bunch of fools they are!  Next they'll be wanting me to look up the Bataks snouts to see if they don't have them full of pearls.  New pearl fisheries!  I know there's a new brothel in Padang, but new pearl fisheries?  I know these islands like my trousers, all the way from Ceylon down to that damned Clipperton Island, and if anyone thinks there's anything new still left to find there that they can make any money out of, well good luck to them.  Thirty years I've been sailing these waters, and now these fools think I'm going to discover something new!"  This was a task so insulting it made Captain van Toch gasp.  "Why can't they send some green kid to find something for them if they want to gape in astonishment; but instead they expect someone to do that who knows the area as well as Captain J. van Toch .. . Please try and understand this.  In Europe there might still be something left to discover; but here - people only come here to sniff out something they could eat, or rather not even to eat, to find something to buy and sell.  If in all these damned tropics there was still something they could double the price of there'd be three commercial agents standing there waving their snotty handkerchiefs at the ships of seven countries to stop for it.  That's how it is.  I know about these things better than the colonial office of Her Majesty the Queen, if you'll forgive me."  Captain van Toch made a great effort to overcome his righteous indignation, and after a prolonged period of exertion he was successful.  "D'you see those two contemptible layabouts down there?  They're pearl fishers from Ceylon, Sinhalese, God help us, just as the Lord made them; but what He made them for, I don't know.  I have them on board with me, and when we find any stretch of coast that doesn't have a sign up saying Agency or Bata or Customs Office down they go in the water to look for oysters.  That small bugger, he can dive down eighty meters deep; in the Princes Islands he went down to ninety meters to get the handle from a film projector.  But pearls?  Nothing!  Not a sniff of them!  Worthless rabble, these Sinhalese.  And that's the sort of worthless work I do.  Pretend to be buying palm oil and all the time looking for new pearl fisheries.  Next they'll be wanting me to find a new virgin continent for them.  This isn't a job for an honest captain in the merchant navy.  Captain J. van Toch isn't some cursed adventurer, no.  And on he would go;  the sea is wide and the ocean of time has no limits; spit in the sea, my friend, and it will not return, berate your destiny and you will never change it; and so on through many preparations and circumstances until we finally arrive at the point when J. van Toch, captain of the Dutch vessel, Kandong Bandoeng, will sigh and climb down into the boat for the trip to Tana Masa where he will negotiate with the drunken half-cast of Cubanese and Portuguese extraction about certain business matters. 

            "Sorry, Captain," the half-cast of Cubanese and Portuguese extraction finally said, "but here on Tana Masa there aren't any oysters.  These filthy Bataks," he would inform him with boundless disgust, "will even eat the jellyfish; there are more of them in the water than on the land, the women here smell of fish, you cannot imagine what it is like - what was I saying?  Ah, yes, you were asking about women."

            "And is there not even any stretch of coastline round here," the captain asked, "where these Bataks don't go in the water?"  The half-cast of Cubanese and Portuguese shook his head. 

            "There is not.  Unless you count Devil Bay, but that would not interest you."

            "Why not?"

            "Because .. . no-one is allowed to go there.  Another drink, Captain?"

            "Thanks.  Are there sharks there?"

            "Sharks and everything else besides," the half-cast mumbled.  "Is a bad place, Captain.  The Bataks would not like to see anyone going down there."

            "Why not?"

            "There are demons there, Captain.  Sea demons."

            "What is that, a sea demon?  A kind of fish?"

            "Not a fish," the half-cast corrected him.  "Simply demons, Captain.  Underwater demons.  The Bataks call them tapa.  Tapa.  They say that that's where they have their city, these demons.  Another drink?"

            "And what do they look like, these sea demons?"  The half cast of Cubanese and Portuguese shrugged his shoulders. 

            "Like a demon, Captain.  I once saw one of them .. . or just its head, at least.  I was coming back in a boat from Cape Haarlem .. . and suddenly, in front of me, a kind of lump stuck up out of the water."

            "And what did it look like?"

            "It had a head .. . like a Batak, Captain, but entirely without hair."

            "Sure it wasn't a real Batak?"

            "Not a real Batak, Captain.  In this place no Batak would ever go into the water.  And then .. .  the thing blinked at me with an eyelid from beneath its eye."  The half-cast shuddered with the horror of it.  "An eyelid from beneath its eye, which reached up to cover the whole eye.  That was a tapa."  Captain J. van Toch turned his glass of palm wine around between his chubby fingers. 

            "And you hadn't been drinking, had you?  You weren't drunk?"

            "I was drunk, Captain.  How else would I ever had rowed into that place.  The Bataks don't like it when anyone .. . anyone disturbs these demons."  Captain van Toch shook his head. 

            "Listen, demons don't exist  And if they did exist they would look like Europeans.  That must have been some kind of fish you saw or something."

            "A fish!" the half-cast of Cubanese and Portuguese spluttered. "A fish does not have hands, Captain.  I am not some Batak Captain, I went to school in Badyoeng .. . I might even still know my ten commandments and other scientifically proven facts; and an educated man will know the difference between a demon and an animal.  Ask the Bataks, Captain."

            "Negro superstitions," the captain declared with the jovial confidence of an educated man.  "This is scientific nonsense.  A demon can't live in water anyway. What would he be doing in the water?  You shouldn't listen to all the nonsense talked by the natives, lad.  Somebody gave the place the name Devil Bay and ever since then the Bataks have been afraid of it.  That's all there is to it," the captain declared, and threw his chubby hand down on the table.  "There's nothing there, lad, that is scientifically obvious."

            "There is, Captain," affirmed the half-cast who had been to school in Badyoeng.  "But no sensible person has any business going to Devil Bay."  Captain J. van Toch turned red.

            "What's that?" he shouted.  "You dirty Cuban, you think I'm afraid of these demons? We'll see about that," he said as he stood up with all the mass of his honest two hundred pounds.  "I'm not going to waste my time with you here, not when I've got business to attend to.  But just remember this; the Dutch colonies don't have any demons in them; even if there are in the French.   There, there might well be.  And now call the mayor of this damned Kampong over to speak to me."

            It did not take long to find the aforementioned dignitary; he was squatting down beside the half-casts shop chewing sugar cane.  He was an elderly man, naked, but a lot thinner than mayors usually are in Europe.   Some way behind him, keeping the appropriate distance, the entire village was also squatting, complete with women and children.  They were clearly expecting to be filmed.  "Now listen to this, son," Captain van Toch said to him in Malay (he could just as well have spoken to him in Dutch or English as the honourable old Batak knew not a word of Malay, and everything said by the captain had to be interpreted into Batak by the half-cast of Cubanese and Portuguese, but for some reason the captain thought Malay would be more appropriate).  "Now listen to this, son, I need a few big, strong, powerful lads to go out on a fishing trip with me.  Understand what I mean?  Out on a fishing trip."   The half-cast translated this and the mayor nodded his head to show he understood; then he turned round to face the wider audience and said something to them, clearly meeting with great success. 

            "Their chief says," translated the half-cast, "that the whole village will go out with the captain wherever the captain might wish."

            "Very well.  So tell him were going to fish for clams in Devil Bay."

            There followed about fifteen minutes of animated discussion with the whole village taking part, especially the old women.  Finally the half-cast turned to the captain.  "They say it's not possible to go to Devil Bay, Captain."  The captain began to turn red.         "And why not?"  The half-cast shrugged his shoulders. 

            "Because there are the tapa-tapa there.  Demons, Captain."  The captain's colour began to rise to purple.

            "Tell them, then, that if they don't go ... . I'll knock all their teeth out .. . I'll tear their ears off .. . I'll hang the lot of them .. . and that I'll burn down their entire flea-ridden village.  Understand?"

            The half-cast dutifully translated what the captain had said, at which there was more lively discussion.  The half-cast finally turned to the captain.  "They say they intend to make a complaint to the police in Padang, Captain, because you've threatened them.  There seem to be laws about that. The mayor says he can't allow that sort of thing."  Captain J. van Toch began to turn blue.

            "Tell him, then," he snarled, "that he is a .. . " and he spoke without pausing for breath for a good eleven minutes. 

            The half-cast translated what he had said, as far as his vocabulary was able; and then he once again translated the Bataks long, but objective, verdict back to the captain.  "They say they might be willing to relinquish taking you to court, Captain, if you pay a fine into the hands of the local authorities.  They suggest," here he hesitated, "two hundred rupees, Captain; but that seems rather a lot.  Offer them five."  Captain van Toch's complexion began to break out in purple blotches.  First he offered to murder all the Bataks in the world, then the offer went down to giving them all three hundred good kickings, and finally he agreed to content himself with stuffing the mayor and putting him on display in the colonial museum in Amsterdam; for their part, the Bataks went down from two hundred rupees to an iron pump with a wheel, and finally insisted on no more than that the captain give the mayor his petrol cigarette lighter as a token.  ("Give it to him, Captain," urged the half-cast of Cubanese and Portuguese, "I've got three cigarette lighters in my store, even if they don't have wicks.")  Thus, peace was restored on Tana Masa; but Captain J. van Toch now knew that the dignity of the white race was at stake.

 

            That afternoon a boat set out from the Dutch ship, Kandon Bandoeng, with the following crew: Captain J. van Toch,  Jensen the Swede, Gudmundson the Icelander, Gillemainen the Finn, and two Sinhalese pearl fishers.  The boat headed straight for Devil Bay.

            At three o'clock, when the tide was at its highest, the captain stood on the shore, the boat was out watching for sharks about a hundred meters offshore, and both the Sinhalese divers were waiting, knife in hand, for the signal to jump into the water.

            "Now you go in," the captain told the farther of the two naked savages.  The Sinhalese jumped into the water, waded out a few paces and then dived.  The captain looked at his watch.

            After four minutes and twenty seconds a brown head emerged to his left, about sixty meters away; with a strange, desperate shudder which seemed at the same time as if paralysed, the Sinhalese clawed at the rocks, in one hand he had the knife, in the other some pearl bearing oysters.  The captain scowled.  "So, what's wrong?" he asked, sharply.  The Sinhalese was still slithering up the rock, unable to speak with the horror of it.  "What has happened?" the captain shouted.

            "Saheb, Saheb," said the Sinhalese as he sank down on the beach, gasping for breath.  "Saheb ... Saheb .."

            "Sharks?"

            "Djinns," groaned the Sinhalese. "Demons, Captain.  Thousands and thousands of demons!"  He pressed his fist into his eye.  "Everywhere demons, Captain!"

            "Show me those oysters," the captain ordered him, and began to open one with the knife.  Inside, there was a small, perfect pearl.  "Find any more of these?"  The Sinhalese drew another three oysters out from the bag he had hanging round his neck. 

            "There are oysters down there, Captain, but they are guarded by these demons ..  They were watching me as I cut them off ..."  The curls on his head stuck out with shock.  "Not here, Saheb, not here!" 

            The captain opened the oysters; two of them were empty and in the third there was a pearl the size of a pea, as round as a drop of mercury.  Captain van Toch looked at the pearl and then at the Sinhalese collapsed on the ground.

            "won't you," he said hesitantly, "dive in there one more time?"  Without a word, the Sinhalese shook his head.  Captain J. van Toch felt a strong urge to castigate and shout at the Sinhalese; but to his surprise he found that he was speaking quietly and almost gently: "Don't you worry, lad.  And what did they look like, these ... demons?"

            "Like little children," said the Sinhalese with a sigh.  "They have a tail, Captain, and they're about this high," indicating about one meter twenty above the ground.  "They stood all around me and watched what I was doing .. a sort of circle of them ..."   The Sinhalese shuddered.  "Saheb, not here Saheb, not here!"  Captain van Toch thought for a while. 

            "And what about when they blink; was it with their lower eyelid or what?"

            "I don't know, Captain," the Sinhalese croaked.  "There are ten thousand of them there!"  The captain looked round to find the other Sinhalese; he stood about fifty meters away, waiting without interest with his hands crossed over on his shoulders; perhaps because when a person is naked he has nowhere else to put his hands than on his own shoulders.  The captain gave him a silent signal and the gaunt Sinhalese jumped into the water.  After three minutes and fifty seconds he re-emerged, clawing at the slippery rocks.

            "Come on, hurry up," the captain shouted, but then he began to look more carefully and soon he himself was jumping and clambering over the rocks to the Sinhalese; no-one would have thought that a body like that could jump so nimbly.  At the last moment he caught hold of the Sinhalese hand and pulled him breathless from the water.  Then he lay him on the rock and wiped the sweat off his brow.  The Sinhalese lay without moving; his shin had been scraped and the bone underneath was exposed, clearly he had injured it on some rock, but he was otherwise unhurt.  The captain raised the man's eyelid; all he could see was the white.  There was no sign of any oysters or the knife.  Just then, the boat and its crew came in close to shore. 

            "Captain," Jensen the Swede called, "there are sharks around here.  Are you going to search for oysters any longer?"

            "No," said the captain.  "Come in here and pick up these two." 

            On the way back to the ship Jensen drew the captains attention to something; "Look how it suddenly becomes shallow just here.  It goes on just like this as far as the shore."  And he demonstrated his point by pushing his oar down into the water.  "it's as if there were some kind of weir under the water."

 

            The little Sinhalese did not come round until they were back on board; he sat with his knees under his chin, shaking from head to toe.  The captain sent everyone away and sat down facing him with his legs wide apart.  "Out with it," he said. "What did you see down there?"

            "Djinns, Saheb," whispered the slender Sinhalese; now even his eyelids had begun to shake, and the whole of his skin came out in goosepimples.   

            "And ... what did they look like?" the captain spluttered.

            "Like ... like ... " A strip of white appeared once more in the Sinhalese eyes.  Captain J. van Toch, with unexpected liveliness, slapped him on both cheeks with his full hand to bring him back to consciousness.  "Thanks, Saheb," the gaunt Sinhalese sighed, and the pupils re-appeared in his eyes. 

            "Alright now?"

            "Yes, Saheb."

            "Were there oysters down there?"

            "Yes, Saheb." 

            With a great deal of patience and thoroughness, Captain J. van Toch went on with the cross questioning.  Yes, there were demons down there.  How many?  Thousands and thousands.  About the size of a ten year old child, Captain, and almost black.  They swim in the water, and on the bottom they walk on two legs.  Two legs, Saheb, just like you or me, but always swaying from side to side, like this, like this, like this ... Yes Captain, they have hands too, just like people; no, they don't have claws, they're more like a child's hands.  No, Saheb, they don't have horns or fur.  Yes, they have a tail, a little like a fish's tail but without the fins.  And a big head, round like a Bataks.  No, they don't say anything, Captain, only a sort of squelch.  When the Sinhalese had been cutting an oyster off, about sixteen metres down, he felt something like little cold fingers touch his back.  He had looked round and there were hundreds and hundreds of them all around him.  Hundreds and hundreds, Captain, swimming around and standing on stones and all of them were watching what the Sinhalese was doing.  So he dropped the knife and the oyster and tried to swim up to the surface.  Then he struck against some of the demons who had been swimming after him, and what happened next he did not know. 

            Captain J. van Toch looked thoughtfully at the little diver as he sat there shivering.  Hell be no good for anything from now on, the said to himself, he would send him to Padang and back on home to Ceylon.  Grumbling and snorting, the captain went to his cabin, where he spilled the two pearls out onto the table from a paper bag.  One of them was as small as a grain of sand and the other as a pea, with a shimmer of silver and pink.  And with that, the captain of the Dutch ship, Kandong Bandoeng, snorted; and then he reached into the cupboard for his bottle of Irish whiskey.

 

            At six o clock he had himself rowed back to the village and went straight to the half cast of Cubanese and Portuguese.  "Toddy," he said, and that was the only word he uttered; he sat on the corrugated-iron veranda, clutched a thick glass tumbler in his chubby fingers and drank and spat and stared out from under his bushy eyebrows at the dirty and trampled yard where some emaciated yellow chickens pecked at something invisible between the palm trees.  The half cast avoided saying anything, and merely poured the drinks.  Slowly, the captain's eyes became bloodshot and his fingers began to move awkwardly.  It was almost dark when he stood up and tightened his trousers.

            "Are you going to bed, Captain?" the half cast of demon and devil asked politely.  The captain punched his fist in the air. 

            "I'm going to go and see if there are any demons in this world that I've never seen before.  You, which damned way is north-west?"

            "This way," the half cast showed him.  "Where are you going?"

            "To Hell," Captain J. van Toch rasped.  "Going to have a look at Devil Bay."

 

            It was from that evening on that Captain J. van Toch's behaviour became so strange.  He did not return to the village until dawn; said not a word to anyone but merely had himself taken back to the ship, where he locked himself in his cabin until evening.  Nobody thought this very odd as the Kandong Bandoeng had some of the blessings of Tana Masa to load on board (copra, pepper, camphor, guttapercha, palm oil, tobacco and labourers); but that evening, when they went to tell him that everything had been loaded, he just snorted and said, "Boat.  To the village."  And he did not return until dawn.  Jensen the Swede, who helped him back on board, merely asked him politely whether they would be setting sail that day.  The captain turned on him as if he had just been knifed in the back. "And what's it to you?" he snapped.  "You mind your own damned business!"  All that day the Kandong Bandoeng lay at anchor off the coast of Tana Masa and did nothing.  In the evening the captain rolled out of his cabin and ordered, "Boat.  To the village."    Zapatis, the little Greek, stared at him with his one blind eye and the other eye squinting.  "Look at this lads," he crowed, "either the old mans got some girl or he's gone totally mad."  Jensen the Swede scowled.  "And what's it to you?" he snapped at Zapatis.  "You mind your own damned business!"  Then, together with Gudmundson the Icelander, he took the little boat and rowed down to Devil Bay.  They stayed in the boat behind the rocks and waited to see what would happen.  The captain came across the bay and seemed to be waiting for someone; he stopped for a while and called out something like ts-ts-ts.  "Look at this," said Gudmundson, pointing to the sea which now glittered red and gold in the sunset.  Jensen counted two, three, four, six fins, as sharp as little scythes, which glided across Devil Bay.  "Oh God," grumbled Jensen, "there are sharks here!"  When, shortly afterwards, one of the little scythes submerged, a tail swished out above the water and created a violent eddy.  At this, Captain J. van Toch on the shore began to jump up and down in fury, issued a gush of curses and threatened the sharks with his fist.  Then the short tropical twilight was over and the light of the moon shone over the island; Jensen took the oars and rowed the boat to within a furlong of the shore.  Now the captain was sitting on a rock calling ts-ts-ts.  Nearby something moved, but it was not possible to see exactly what.  It looks like a seal, thought Jensen, but seals don't move like that.  It came out of the water between the rocks and pattered along the beach, swaying from side to side like a penguin.  Jensen quietly rowed in and stopped half a furlong away from the captain.  Yes, the captain was saying something, but the Devil knew what it was; he must have been speaking in Tamil or Malay.  He opened his hands wide as if about to throw something to these seals (although Jensen was now sure they were not seals), and all the time babbling his Chinese or Malay.  Just then the raised oar slipped out of Jensen's hand and fell in the water with a splash.  The captain lifted his head, got up and walked about thirty paces into the water; there was a sudden flashing and banging; the captain was shooting with his browning in the direction of the boat.  Almost simultaneously there was a rustling and a splashing in the bay as, with a whirl of activity, it seemed as if a thousand seals were jumping into the water; but Jensen and Gudmundson were already pressing on the oars and driving the boat so hard that it swished through the water until it was behind the nearest corner.  When they got back to the ship they said not a word to anyone.  The northern races know how to keep silent.  In the morning the captain returned; he was angry and unhappy, but said nothing.  Only, when Jensen helped him on board both men gave each other a cold and inquisitive look.

            "Jensen," said the captain.

            "Yes sir."

            "Today, we set sail."

            "Yes sir."

            "In Surabai you get your papers."

            "Yes sir."

            And that was it.  That day the Kandong Bandoeng sailed into Padang.  In Padang Captain J. van Toch sent his firm in Amsterdam a parcel insured for a thousand two hundred pounds sterling.  At the same time he sent a telegram asking for his annual leave.  Urgent medical reasons, and so on.  Then he wandered around Padang until he found the man he was looking for.  This was a native of Borneo, a Dayak who English tourists would sometimes hire as a shark hunter just for the show; as this Dayak still worked in the old way, armed with no more than a long knife.  He was clearly a cannibal but he had his fixed terms: five pounds for a shark plus his board.  He was also quite startling in appearance, as both hands, his breast and his legs were heavily scarred from contact with shark skin and his nose and ears were decorated with shark teeth.  He was known as Shark.

            With this Dayak, Captain J. van Toch set off back to the island of Tana Masa.

 

 

2 - MISTER GOLOMBEK AND MISTER VALENTA

 

            As far as the newspapers were concerned, it was the sort of hot day when nothing, absolutely nothing, happens, when no politics is done and there aren't even any tensions in Europe; but it is just on days like this that newspaper readers, lying in an agony of boredom on the beaches or in the sparse shade of trees, demoralised by the heat, the view, the quiet of the countryside and all that makes up their healthy and simple life on holiday, hope in vain to find to find something in the newspapers, something that will be new and refreshing, some murder, some war or some earthquake, in short, anything; and when they are disappointed they throw the paper down and declare in irritation that there is nothing there, nothing whatsoever, that it is not worth reading and they will stop buying a newspaper in future.

            Meanwhile in the editorial office, there are five or six people left by themselves, as their colleagues are also all on holiday, who throw the paper down in irritation and complain that there is nothing there, nothing whatsoever.  And the type-setter comes out of the composing-room and warns them: "Gentlemen, we still don't have a leader for tomorrow's issue". 

            "Well how about, er, that thing about the economic situation in Bulgaria?" suggests one of the gentlemen in the abandoned office.  The type-setter sighs deeply:

            "And who's going to want to read that?  Once again, there's going to be nothing in the whole paper worth reading."  The six gentlemen left all by themselves raised their eyes to the ceiling as if they might find something worth reading about there. 

            "If only something would happen," said one of them uncertainly. 

            "Or what about, er, some kind of interesting reportage," suggested another.

            "What about?"

            "I don't know."

            "We could think up ... some new vitamin or something," grumbled a third.

            "What now?  In the middle of the summer?" a fourth objected.  "Look, vitamins are scientific things, that's more suitable for the Autumn."

            "God it's hot!" yawned the fifth.  "Whatever it is it ought to come from the polar regions."

            "Such as what?"

            "Something like that Eskimo story.  Frozen fingers, eternal ice, that sort of thing."

            "That's easy enough to say," said the sixth, "but where do we get the story from?"  The silence of despair spread across the editorial office.

            "Last Sunday," began the typesetter hesitantly, "I was in the Moravian hills."

            "So what?"

            "Well, I heard something about some Captain Vantoch who was on holiday there.  Seems he was born in the area."

            "Vantoch?  Who's he?"

            "Fat sort of bloke.  A sea captain or something.  They said he'd been out looking for pearls."  Mister Golombek looked at Mister Valenta.

            "And whereabouts was he looking?"

            "In Sumatra .. and the Celebese .. all round that sort of area.  They said he'd spent thirty years out there."

            "Now there's an idea," said Mister Valenta.  "That could be a great reportage.  Shall we go with it, Golombek?"

            "Can give it a try, I suppose," Mister Golombek opined, and got off his chair.

 

            "It's that gentleman, over there," said the landlord in Moravia.  At a table in the garden sat a fat man in a white cap with his legs wide apart, he was drinking beer and seemed thoughtful as he drew broad lines on the table with his finger.  Both men went over to him.

            "I'm Valenta, editorial staff."

            "I'm Golombek, editorial staff."  The fat man raised his eyes:

            "Eh, what?"

            "Valenta, from the newspaper."

            "And I'm Golombek.  From the newspaper."  The fat man stood up with dignity. 

            "Captain van Toch.  Very glad.  Take a seat, lads."  Both men obligingly sat down and lay writing pads down in front of themselves.  "What'll you have to drink, boys?"

            "Raspberry juice," said Mister Valenta.

            "Raspberry juice?" repeated the captain in disbelief.  "What for?  Landlord, bring them each a beer. - Now what was it you wanted?" he asked, putting his elbows on the table.

            "Is it true that you were born here, Mister Vantoch?"

            "Ja.  Born here."

            "And tell us, please, how come you went to sea?"

            "I went via Hamburg."

            "And how long have you been a captain?"

            "Twenty years, lads.  Got my papers here," he said, emphasising his point by tapping on his breast pocket.  "Can show you if you like."  Mister Golombek would have liked to see what a captains papers look like, but he restrained himself. 

            "I'm sure you must have seen a good part of the world in those twenty years, Captain."

            "Ja, I've seen a bit, ja."

            "And what places have you seen?"

            "Java.  Borneo.  Philippines.  Fiji Islands.  Solomon Islands.  Carolines.  Samoa.  Damned Clipperton Island.  A lot of damned islands, lads.  Why do you ask?"

            "Well, it's just that it's all very interesting.  Wed like to hear some more about it, you see."

            "Ja.  All just very interesting, eh?"  The captain fixed his pale blue eyes on them.  "You're from the police then, are you?"

            "No, were not from the police, Captain, were from the newspapers."

            "Ah ja, from the newspapers.  Reporters, are you?  We'll write this down: Captain J. van Toch, captain of the Kandong Bandoeng ..."

            "What's that?"

            "The Kandong Bandoeng, port of Surabai.  Reason for journey: vacances ... how do you say that?"

            "On holiday."

            "Ja, dammit, holiday.  So you can put that in your newspapers, who's sailed in.  And now put your notes away, lads.  Your health."

            "Mister Vantoch, we've come to find you so that you might tell us something about your life."

            "What for?"

            "We'll write it down in the papers.  People are very interested in reading about distant islands and all the things seen and experienced there by their compatriots, by another Czech ..."  The captain nodded.

            "That's all true, lads, I'm the only sea captain ever from this town, that's true.  I've heard about one other captain from ... from .. somewhere, but I think," he added intimately, "that he's not a proper captain.  It's all to do with the tonnage, you see."

            "And what was the tonnage of your ship?"

            "Twenty thousand tons, lads."

            "You were a great captain, were you?"

            "A great one," the captain said with dignity.  "Have you got any money, boys?"  Both gentlemen looked at each other a little uncertainly. 

            "We have some money, but not a lot.  Are you in need of money, Captain?"

            "Ja.  I might need some"

            "Well listen.  If you tell us lots of things we'll write it up for the paper and you'll get money for it."

            "How much?"

            "It could be ... could be several thousand," said Mister Golombek generously.

            "Pounds sterling?"

            "No, only Czechoslovak koruny."  Captain van Toch shook his head. 

            "No, that won't do.  I've got that much myself, lads," and he drew a thick wad of banknotes out of his trouser pocket.  "See?"  Then he put his elbows back on the table and leant forward to the two men.  "Gentlemen, I might have some big business for you.  And that would mean you giving me fifteen ... hold on ... fifteen or sixteen million koruny.  How about it?"  Once again, the two gentlemen looked at each other uncertainly.  Newspaper men have experience of all sorts of the strangest madmen, cheats and inventors.  "Wait," said the captain, "I've got something here I can show you."  His chubby fingers reached into a pocket in his waistcoat and he hunted out something which he placed on the table.  It was five pink pearls, the size of cherry stones.  "Do you know anything about pearls?"

            "What might they be worth?" gasped Mister Valenta.

            "Ja, lots of money, lads.  But I carry them around just to show people, just as a sample.  So how about it, are you in with me?" he asked, reaching his broad hand across the table.  Mister Golombek sighed.

            "Mister Vantoch, as much money as .."

            "Halt," the captain interrupted him.  "I realise you don't know me; but ask about Captain van Toch anywhere in Surabaya, in Batavia, in Padang or anywhere you like.  Go and ask and anyone will tell you ja, Captain van Toch, he is as good as his word."

            "Mister Vantoch, we don't doubt your word," Mister Golombek protested, "but ..."

            "Wait," the captain ordered.  "I know you want to be careful about where you give away your precious money; and quite right too.  But here you'll be spending it on a ship, see?  You buy a ship, that makes you a ship owner and you can come with me; ja, you can sail with me to see how I'm looking after it.  And the money we make, we can share it fifty-fifty.  That's honest business, isn't it?"

            "But Mister Vantoch," Mister Golombek finally exclaimed anxiously, "we just don't have that much money!"

            "Ja, in that case it's different," said the captain.  "Sorry.  But now I don't know why you've come to find me."

            "So that you can tell us about yourself, Captain, you must have had so many experiences ..."

            "Ja, that I have, lads.  A damned lot of experiences."

            "Have you ever been shipwrecked?"

            "What?  What shipwreck?  No I haven't.  Who do you think I am?  If they give me a good ship then nothing can happen to it.  You can even go and ask about my references in Amsterdam.  Go there and ask."

            "And what about the natives?  Have you met many natives?"  Captain van Toch snorted.  "This is nothing for an educated man.  I'm not going to talk about that."

            "Then tell us about something else."

            "Ja, tell you something else," the captain grumbled mistrustfully.  "And then you can sell it to some other company which then sends its ships out there.  I can tell you, my lad, people are all thieves.  And the biggest thieves of all are these bankers in Colombo."

            "Have you been to Colombo many times?

            "Ja, many times.  And Bangkok too, and Manila .. Lads," he suddenly interrupted himself, "I know of a ship.  A very good ship, and cheap at the price.  It's in Rotterdam.  Come and have a look at it.  Rotterdam is no distance," and he indicated over his shoulder with his thumb.  "Ships are very cheap nowadays, lads.  Like old iron.  As soon as a ship is six years old they want to replace it with something with a diesel motor.  Do you want to see it?"

            "We can't, Mister Vantoch."

            "You're very strange people," the captain sighed, and blew his nose noisily into a pale blue handkerchief. "And you don't know of anyone here who might want to buy a ship?"

            "Here in Moravia?"

            "Ja, here, or anywhere nearby.  I'd like a big deal like this to come here, to my country."

            "That's very nice of you, Captain ..."

            "Ja.  Those others are enormous thieves.  And they don't have any money.  People like you, from the newspapers, you must know some important people here, bankers and ship owners and the like."

            "We don't know anyone, Mister Vantoch."

            "Well, that's a pity," said the captain, sadly.  Mister Golombek remembered something.

            "You don't know Mister Bondy, do you?"

            "Bondy?  Bondy?"  Captain van Toch tried to remember.  "Wait, that name does sound familiar.  Bondy.  Ja, there's a Bond Street in London, where all the very rich people live.  Does he have some business on Bond Street, this Mister Bondy?"

            "No, he lives in Prague, but I think he was born here in Moravia."

            "Jesus!"  Captain van Toch burst out gaily, "you're right lads.  Had a tailors shop on the square.  Ja, Bondy, what was his name?  Max.  Max Bondy.  So he's in business in Prague now, is he?"

            "No I think that must have been his father.  This Bondy is called G.H.  President G.H. Bondy, Captain."

            "G.H.," the captain puzzled.  "There was never any G.H. here.  Unless you mean Gustl Bondy - but he was never any president.  Gustl was a sort of freckle-faced Jew.  Can't be him."

            "It can be him, Mister Vantoch.  Don't forget it's many years since you've seen him."

            "Ja, you could be right.  It is many years," the captain agreed.  "Forty years, lads.  I suppose Gustl could have become important by now.  And what is he?"

            "He's the president of the MEAS organisation - you know? - that enormous factory making boilers and so on, and the president of abut twenty companies and cartels.  He's a very important man, Mister Vantoch.  They call him a captain of Czech industry."

            "Captain?" said Captain van Toch in amazement.  "So I'm not the only captain from this town!  Jesus!  That Gustl is a captain too.  I suppose I ought to meet up with him.  Has he got any money?"

            "Has he?  Enormous amounts of money, Mister Vantoch.  He must have hundreds of millions.  The richest man in Czechoslovakia."  Captain van Toch became very serious. 

            "And a captain, too.  Thank you, lads.  I'll have to go and see him, this Bondy.  Ja, Gustl Bondy, I know.  Jewish boy, he was.  And now its Captain G.H. Bondy.  Ja, ja, things change," he added with a melancholy sigh.

            "Captain Vantoch, we'll have to go soon so that we don't miss the evening train .."

            "I'll come down to the harbour with you, then," the captain suggested and he began to weigh anchor.  "Very glad to have met you, lads.  I know a newspaper man in Surabaya, good lad, ja, a good friend of mine.  Hell of a drinker.  I could find you both a place on the paper in Surabaya if you like.  No?  Well, as you like." 

            And as the train drew out of the station Captain van Toch waved to them slowly and triumphantly with his enormous blue handkerchief.  As he did so, one large, slightly mis-shapen pearl dropped down into the sand.  A pearl which nobody ever found again. 

 

3 - G. H. BONDY AND THE CAPTAIN

 

            It is a well known fact that the more important a man is the less he has written on his door.  Above his shop in Moravia, and all round the door and on the windows, old Max Bondy had to announce in big letters that here was Max Bondy, dealer in sartorial goods of every sort,  wedding outfitter, sheets, towels, teatowels, tablecloths and coverings, calico and serge, silks, curtains, lambrequins, and all tailoring and sewing requisites.  Founded 1885.  His son, G.H. Bondy, captain of industry, president of the MEAS corporation, commercial adviser, brokering adviser, deputy president of the Confederation of Industry, Consulado de la República Ecuador, member of many advisory committees etc. etc. has nothing more on his house door than one small, black, glass panel with gold letters that spell the word:

 

BONDY

 

That is all.  Just Bondy.  Others might have Julius Bondy, Representative of General Motors on their doors, or Ervín Bondy, Doctor of Medicine, or S. Bondy and Company; but there is only one Bondy who is simply Bondy without any further details.  (I think the Pope has simply Pius written on his door without any title or number.  And God doesn't have a name plate at all, neither in Heaven nor on Earth.  You have to work out for yourself who it is that lives where He lives.  But none of this belongs to this story, and it is only mentioned in passing.)

            One burning hot day, in front of the glass panel there stood a gentleman in a white sailors cap, wiping the massive folds of his neck with a blue handkerchief.  Damned grand sort of house to live in, he thought, and somewhat uncertainly he pulled on the brass knob of the doorbell. 

            Mister Povondra, the doorman, appeared, took the measure of the heavy man at the door by looking him up and down from his feet to the gold braid on the cap, and with some reserve asked: "Can I help you?"

            "Yes you can, lad," the gentleman replied loudly. "Does a Mister Bondy live here?"

            "What is your business with Mister Bondy?" was Mister Povondra's icy reply.

            "Tell him that Captain van Toch from Surabaya wants to speak to him.  Ja," he remembered, "here's my card."  And he handed Mister Povondra a visiting card bearing an embossed anchor and the name:

 

CAPTAIN J. VAN TOCH

E. I. & P. L. Co S. Kandong Bandoeng

Surabaya          Naval Club

 

            Mister Povondra lowered his eyes and considered this.  Had he better tell him that Mister Bondy is not at home?  Or that he was afraid that Mister Bondy is at an important conference?  There are some callers who need to be announced, and there are some others that a good doorman will deal with himself.  Mister Povondra felt a troubling failure of the instinct that normally guides him in these matters; this fat man at the door did not somehow fall into the usual class of unannounced visitors, he did not seem to be a commercial representative, or a functionary of a charitable organisation.  Meanwhile, Captain van Toch was snorting and wiping his brow with his handkerchief; at the same time he was blinking ingenuously with his pale blue eyes.  Mister Povondra suddenly decided to take the responsibility for this man onto himself.  "Please come in Captain van Toch," he said, "I will announce you to Mister Bondy".

            Captain J. van Toch wiped his brow with his blue handkerchief and looked round the ante-room.  Hell, this Gustl has got things alright; it's like the saloon on one of those ships that sail from Rotterdam to Batavia.  It must have cost a fortune.  And all that by a freckly little Jew, the captain thought in admiration. 

            Meanwhile, in his study, G.H. Bondy was contemplating the captain's visiting card.  "And what does he want with me?" he asked suspiciously. 

            "I'm afraid I don't know, Sir," mumbled Mister Povondra unctuously.  Mister Bondy was still holding the card in his hand.  And embossed ships anchor.  Captain J. van Toch, Surabaya - where actually is Surabaya?  Is it somewhere in Java?  that seemed a very long way away to Mister Bondy.  Kandong Bandoeng, that sounds like a gong being struck.  Surabaya.  And it feels just like the tropics here, today.  Surabaya. 

            "Well, you'd better show him in," Mister Bondy ordered.

            The heavy man in the captain's cap stood in the doorway and saluted.  G.H. Bondy went over to welcome him.  "Very glad to meet you, Captain.  Please, come in," he said in English.

            "Hello, hello Mister Bondy," proclaimed the captain cheerfully in Czech.

            "Are you Czech?" asked Mister Bondy in surprise.

            "Ja, Czech.  And we even know each other, Mister Bondy.  From Moravia.  Vantoch the grain merchant, do you remember?"

            "That's right, that's right," G.H. Bondy replied with enthusiasm, although he did feel a little disappointment that this was not a Hollander after all.  "Vantoch the grain merchant, on the town square, wasn't it.  And you haven't changed at all, Mister Vantoch!  Still just the same!  And how's the grain business going?"

            "Thanks," the captain replied politely.  "It's been a long time now since Dad ... how do you say ..."

            "Since he died? Oh, of course, you must be his son ..."  Mister Bondy's eyes came alive with a sudden memory.  My dear Vantoch!  You must be that Vantoch who used to fight with me when we were lads!"

            "Yes, that will have been me, Mister Bondy," agreed the captain seriously.  "In fact that's why they sent me away, to Ostrava, up in the north."

            "You and I were always fighting.  But you were stronger than me," Mister Bondy acknowledged sportingly.

            "Ja, I was stronger than you.  You were such a weak little Jew-boy, Mister Bondy.  And you were given Hell for it."

            "I was, that's true," mused G.H. Bondy, somewhat moved.   But sit down, my friend!  How nice of you to think of me!  What brings you here?"   Captain van Toch sat down with dignity into a leather armchair and laid his cap on the floor. 

            "I'm here on holiday, Mister Bondy.  That's so."

            "Do you remember," asked Mister Bondy as he sank into his memories, "how you used to shout at me: Jew-boy, Jew-boy, you go to Hell.

            "Ja," the captain admitted, and he trumpeted with some emotion into his blue handkerchief.  "Oh yes, they were good times, lad.  But what does it matter now?  Time passes.  Now were both old men and both captains."

            "That's true, you're a captain," Mister Bondy reminded himself.  "Who'd have thought it?  A Captain of Long Distances."

            "Yessir.  A highseaer.  East India and Pacific Lines, Sir."

            "A wonderful career," said Mister Bondy with a sigh.  "I'd change places with you straight away, Captain.  You must tell me about yourself."

            "Alright then, "  said the captain as he became more lively.  "There's something I'd like to tell you about, Mister Bondy.  Something very interesting, lad."  Captain van Toch looked around uneasily.                 

            "Are you looking for something, Captain?"

            "Ja.  Don't you drink beer, Mister Bondy   The journey here from Surabaya made me so thirsty."  The captain began to rummage in the copious pockets of his trousers and drew out his blue handkerchief, a canvas bag containing something, a bag of tobacco, a knife, a compass and a wad of banknotes.  "I think we should send someone out for some beer.  What about that steward who showed me in here to your cabin."  Mister Bondy rang a bell. 

            "Nothing to worry about, Captain.  Meanwhile you could light a cigar .. "  The captain took a cigar with a red and gold band and drew in the aroma. 

            "Tobacco from Lombok.  Bunch of thieves there, for what it's worth."  And with that, to Mister Bondy's horror, he crumbled the costly cigar in his massive hands and put the it into a pipe.  "Ja, Lombok.  Lombok or Sumba."  By this time, Mister Povondra had made his silent appearance in the doorway. 

            "Bring us some beer," Mister Bondy ordered.  Mister Povondra raised his eyebrow.

            "Beer?  And how much beer?"

            "A gallon," the captain grumbled as he stepped on a used match on the carpet.  "In Aden, the heat was awful, lad.  Now, Mister Bondy, I've got some news for you.  From the Sunda Islands, see?  There's a chance there to do some fantastic business.  But I'll need to tell you the whole story.  Wait." The captain's eyes turned to the ceiling as he remembered.  "I don't really know where to begin."  (Yet another business deal, thought G.H. Bondy to himself.  God, this is going to be boring.  He's going to talk to me about exporting sewing machines to Tasmania or boilers and safety pins to Fiji.  Fantastic business, yes, I know.  That's what I'm good for.  But I'm not some junk dealer, damn it!  I'm an adventurer.  I'm a poet in my own way.  Tell me about Sinbad, sailor-man!  Tell me about Surabaya or the Phoenix Islands.  Have you never been pulled of course by a magnetic mountain, have you never been captured by the bird, Noh, and taken up to its nest?  Don't you come back to port with a cargo of pearls and cinnamon and hardwoods?  No?  Better start your lies, then.)  "I suppose I could start with these lizards," the captain began. 

            "What lizards?" asked the businessman in surprise.

            "Well, these astonishing lizards they have there, Mister Bondy."

            "Where?"

            "On one of these islands.  I can't tell you the name, lad.  That is a big secret, worth millions."  Captain van Toch wiped his brow with his handkerchief.  "Where the Hell has that beer got to?"

            "It will be right here, Captain."

            "Yes, that's good.  And you ought to know that these are very decent and likable animals, these lizards.  I know them, lad."  The captain slammed his hand down on the table;  "and if anyone says they're demons they're a liar, a damned liar, Sir.  You and me are more like demons than they are, me, Captain van Toch, Sir.  You can take my word for it."  G.H. Bondy was startled.  Delirium, he thought.  Where is that damned Povondra?  "There are several thousand of them there, these lizards, but a lot of them are eaten by sharks.  That's why these lizards are so rare and only in one place, in this bay that I can't give you the name of."

            "You mean these lizards live in the sea?"

            "Ja.  In the sea.  But at night they come out onto the shore, although after a while they have to go back into the water."

            "And what do they look like?"  (Mister Bondy was trying to gain time before that damned Povondra came back.)

            "Well, about as big as a seal, but when they walk on their hind legs they'd be about this high," the captain demonstrated.  "I won't tell you they're nice to look at, they're not.  And they haven't got any scales.  They're quite bare, Mister Bondy, naked, like a frog or a salamander.  And their front paws, they're like the hands on a child, but they've only got four fingers.  Poor things," the captain added in sympathy.  "But they're nice animals, Mister Bondy, very clever and very likable."  The captain crouched down and, still in that position, began to waddle forward.  "And this is how they walk, these lizards."

            The captain, with some effort and still squatting down,  carried his body along in a wave-like movement; at the same time he held his hand out in front of himself like a dog begging for something and fixed his eyes on Mister Bondy in a way that seemed to beg him for sympathy. G.H. Bondy was deeply touched by this and almost felt ashamed.  While this was going on, Mister Povondra appeared in the doorway with a jug of beer and raised his eyebrows in shock when he saw the captain's undignified behaviour.  "Give us the beer and get out," Mister Bondy exclaimed.  The captain stood up, wheezing. 

            "Well, that's what these animals are like, Mister Bondy.  Your health," he added as he took a draught of the beer.  "This is good beer you've got here, lad.  But in a house like this ..."  The captain wiped his moustache.

            "And how did you come across these lizards, Captain?"

            "That's just what I wanted to tell you about, Mister Bondy.  It happened like this; I was looking for pearls on Tana Masa ..." the captain stopped short.  "Or somewhere round those parts.  Ja, it was some other island, but for the time being that's still my secret.  People are enormous thieves, Mister Bondy, you have to be careful what you say.  And while those two damned Sinhalese were under water cutting away the oysters - the oysters hold as fast to the rocks like a Jew holds to his faith and have to be cut away with a knife - the lizards were there watching them, and the Sinhalese thought they were sea monsters.  They're very ignorant people, these Sinhalese and Bataks.  Anyway, they thought they were demons.  Ja."  The captain trumpeted noisily into his handkerchief.  "You know, lad, it's a strange thing.  I don't know whether us Czechs are more inquisitive than other people but whenever I've come across another Czech he's always had to stick his nose into everything find out what's there.  I think, us Czechs, we don't want to believe in anything.  So I got it into my stupid, old head that I should go and get a closer look at these demons.  True, I was drunk at the time, but that was only because I couldn't get these stupid demons out of my mind.  Down there on the equator, lad, down there anything's possible.  So that evening I went down and had a look at Devil Bay. .."  Mister Bondy did his best to imagine a bay in the tropics, surrounded by cliffs and jungle.

            "And then?"

            "So there I was sitting by the bay and going ts-ts-ts so that the demons would come.  And then, lad, after a while, a kind of lizard crawled up out of the water.  It stood up on its hind legs, twisting its whole body.  And it went ts-ts-ts at me.  If I hadn't been drunk I probably would have shot it; but, my friend, I was sloshed as an Englishman, so I said to it, come here, hey you tapa-boy come here, I won't harm you."

            "Were you speaking to it in Czech?"

            "No, Malay.  That's what they speak most down there, lad.  He did nothing, just made a few steps here and there and looked sideways at me like a child that's too shy to talk.  And all around in the water were a couple of hundred of these lizards, poking their paws up out of the water and watching me.  So I, well yes I was drunk, I squatted down and began to twist about like these lizards so that they wouldn't be afraid of me.  Then another lizard crawled out of the water, about the size of a ten year old boy, and he started waddling about too.  And in his front paw he had an oyster."  The captain took a draught of beer.  "Cheers, Mister Bondy.  Well it's true that I was very drunk, so I said to him, what a clever lad you are, eh, what is it you want then?  Want me to open that oyster for you, do you?  Come here then, I can open it with my knife.  But he just stood there, still didn't dare come any closer.  So once again, I started to twist about like I was a shy little girl.  Then he pattered up closer to me, I slowly held out my hand to him and took the oyster from his paw.  Now, you can understand we were both a bit afraid, but I was drunk.  So I took my knife and opened that oyster; I felt inside to see if there was a pearl there but there wasn't, only that vile snot, like one of those slimy molluscs that live in those shells.  Alright then, I said, ts-ts-ts, you can eat it if you like.  And I tossed the open oyster over to him.  You should have seen how he licked it up, lad.  It must have been a wonderful titbit for these lizards.  Only, the poor animals weren't able to get into the hard shells with their little fingers.  Life is hard, ja!"  The captain took another drink of beer.  "So I worked it out in my head, lad.  When these lizards saw how the Sinhalese cut away the oysters they must have said to themselves, aha, so they eat oysters, and they wanted to see how these Sinhalese would open them.  One of these Sinhalese looks pretty much like a lizard when he's in the water, but one of these lizards was more clever than a Sinhalese or a Batak because he wanted to learn something.  And a Batak will never want to learn anything unless it's how to thieve something," Captain J. van Toch added in disgust.  "So when I was on that shore going ts-ts-ts and twisting about like a lizard they must have thought to themselves that I'm some kind of great-big salamander.  That's why they weren't really scared of me and came closer, so that I would open the oysters for them.  That's how intelligent and trusting these animals are."  Captain van Toch went red.  "When I'd got to know them better I took all my clothes off, so that I'd look more like them, naked; but they were still puzzled at the hairs on my chest and that sort of thing.  Ja."  The captain wiped his handkerchief over his blushing neck.  "But I hope I'm not boring you, Mister Bondy."  G.H. Bondy was enchanted.

            "No, no. Not at all.  Please carry on, Captain."

            "Yes, yes alright then.  So when this lizard had licked out the shell with all the others watching him they climbed up onto the shore.  Some of them even had oysters in their paws - something odd about this, lad, is that they were able to pull them off the cliffs when they only had these little fingers without a thumb, like a child's fingers.  At first they were too shy, but then they let me take the oyster out of their hands.  True, they weren't proper oysters with pearls in them, all sorts of things it was they brought me, the sort of clams and the like that don't have pearls in them, but I threw them back in the water and told them, that's no good children, they're not worth opening, I'm not going to use my knife on them.  But when they brought me a pearl-oyster I opened it with my knife and checked carefully to see if there wasn't a pearl there.  Then I gave it back to them for them to lick it out.  So by then there was a couple of hundred of these lizards sitting round me and watching to see how it was I opened the oysters.  Some of them tried to do it themselves, tried to cut round the oyster with the bits of shell that were lying around.  I found that very strange, lad.  No animal knows how to use tools; all that an animal knows is what's been shown to it by nature.  I admit, I once saw in Buitenzorg a monkey that could open a tin can with a knife; but a monkey, that s not really a proper animal.  But I did find it strange."  The captain took a drink of beer.  "That night, Mister Bondy, I found about eighteen pearls in those shells.  Some of them were small and some were bigger and three of them were as big as the stone in a peach, Mister Bondy, as big as the stone in a peach."  Captain van Toch nodded his head earnestly.  "After I'd got back to my ship in the morning I said to myself, Captain van Toch, sir, it was all just  dream, you were drunk, and so on.  But I couldn't believe what I told myself, not when I had eighteen pearls in my pocket.  Ja."

            "That is the best story I've ever heard," said Mister Bondy, with a sigh.  Captain van Toch was pleased at this and said,

            "There, you see, lad.  I thought about what had happened all that day.  I would tame these lizards, wouldn't I.  Ja.  Tame them and train them to bring me these pearl oysters.  There must have been an enormous number of them down there in Devil Bay.  So that evening I went down again, but a bit earlier.  When the Sun began to go down the lizards began to stick their noses out from the water, one here, then one there, until the water was full of them.  I sat on the shore and went ts-ts-ts.  Then I looked and saw a shark, just its fin poking up from the water.  And then there was a lot of splashing and one of the lizards had had it.  I counted twelve of those sharks cruising into Devil Bay in the sunset.  Mister Bondy, in just one evening those monsters ate more than twenty of my lizards," the captain exclaimed and blew his nose angrily.  "Ja!  More than twenty!  It stands to reason, a naked lizard like that with those little paws, he can't defend himself.  It was enough to make you cry to see a sight like that.  You should have seen it, lad ..."

            The captain stopped and thought for a while.  "I'm quite fond of animals, you see," he said finally, and lifted his blue eyes to G.H. Bondy.  "I don't know what you think of all this, Captain Bondy ..."  Mister Bondy nodded to show his agreement, and this pleased Captain van Toch.  "That's alright, then.  "They're very good and intelligent, these tapa-boys; if you tell them something they pay attention like a dog listening to its master.  And most of all, these little hands they have, like children's hands.  You know lad, I'm an old man and I have no family ... Ja, an old man can be very lonely," the captain complained as he overcame his emotion.  "It's very easy to become fond of these lizards, for what it's worth.  But if only the sharks didn't keep eating them like that!  Then when I went after them, after those sharks, and I threw stones at them, then they started throwing stones too, these tapa-boys.  You won't believe it, Mister Bondy.  True, they couldn't throw the stones very far because their hands were so small, but it was all very strange.  As you're so clever, I said to them, you can try and open some of these oysters yourselves with my knife.  So I put the knife down on the ground.  They were a bit shy at first, but then one of them tried it, pushing the point of the knife between the two halves of the shell.  You've got to lever it open, I told him, lever it, see?  Twist the knife round, like this, and there, that's it.  And he kept on trying, poor thing, until it gave way and the shell opened.  There, you see, I said.  Not that hard, is it.  If some pagan Batak or Sinhalese can do it then why shouldn't a tapa-boy do it too, eh?  Now, Mister Bondy, I wasn't going to tell these lizards how it was wonderful, marvellous, astonishing to see what an animal like that could do, but now I can tell you that I was .. I was ... well simply thunderstruck."

            "As I can see," answered Mister Bondy.

            "Yes, that's right.  As you can see.  I was so confused at all this that I stayed there another day with my ship, and then in the evening went back to Devil Bay and once more I watched how the sharks were eating my lizards.  That night I swore that I would put an end to that, lad.  I even gave them my word of honour.  Tapa-boys, I said, Captain J. van Toch hereby promises, under the majesty of all these stars, that I will help you."

 

4 -CAPTAIN VAN TOCH'S BUSINESS

 

            While Captain van Toch was saying this the hair on the back of his neck had risen with his anger and excitement.  "And so I swore.  And ever since then, lad, I've not had a moments peace.  In Padang I took some leave due to me and sent a hundred and seven pearls to those Jew-boys in Amsterdam, everything those animals of mine had brought me.  Then I found a kind of lad, Dayak he was, a shark-killer, they go in the water and kill the sharks with a knife.  Terrible thief and murderer he was, this Dayak.  And then with him on a little tramp-steamer, we went back to Tana Masa, and now, lad, in you go and kill these sharks with your knife.  I wanted him to kill the sharks so that they'd leave my lizards in peace, but this Dayak was such a cut-throat and pagan he didn't do a thing, not even for those tapa-boys.  He didn't give a damn about the job.  And all this time I was making my own observations and experiments with these lizards  - just a minute, I've got a ships logbook here where I noted everything down every day."  The captain drew a voluminous set of notes out from his breast pocket and began to leaf through them .  "What's the date today?  I know, the twenty-fifth of June.  Now, the twenty-fifth June for instance - last year, this was - I was here and the Dayak was out killing sharks.  These lizards have a real big liking for carrion.  Toby - that was one of the lizards, a smallish one, clever though," explained the captain.  "I had to give them some sort of a name, didn't I, so that I could write about them in this book.  So, Toby pushed his fingers into the hole the knife had left.  Evening, they brought a dry branch for my fire.  No, that's nothing," the captain grumbled.  "I'll find another day. Lets say, the twentieth of June, shall we?  The lizards continued building their jetty.  This was some kind of dam.  They were building a new dam at the north-western end of Devil Bay.  And this was a fantastic piece of work, lad," the captain explained, "a proper breakwater.  And they brought their eggs down to this side of it where the water would be quiet.  They thought it up all by themselves, this dam; and I can tell you, no clerk or engineer from Waterstaat in Amsterdam could have made a better plan for a submerged breakwater than they did.  An amazingly skilled piece of work.  And they dug out, sort of, deep holes in the banks under the water and lived in them during the day.  Amazingly clever animals, just like beavers, those great big mice that build dams on a river.  And they had a lot of these dams in Devil Bay, big ones and small ones, lovely smooth and level dams, it looked like a city.  In the end they wanted to put a dam right across the whole of Devil Bay.  That's how it was.  They can now lift boulders with a lever, " he read on.  " Albert - that was one of the tapa-boys - crushed two of his fingers.  Twenty-first:  The Dayak ate Albert!  But it made him ill.  Fifteen drops of opium.  Promised not to do it again.  Rain all day.  Thirtieth of June: Lizards finished building dam.  Toby did not want to work.  Now, he was clever, Toby," the captain explained with admiration.  "The clever ones never want to do anything.  He was always working things out with his hands, this Toby.  For what it's worth, there are big differences between lizards just like between people.  Third of July:  Sergeant got the knife.  This Sergeant, he was a big strong lizard.  And very clever with it.  Seventh of July:  Sergeant used knife to kill a cuttle-fish.  Tenth of July:  Sergeant killed big jelly-fish with knife.  Strange sort of animal, a jelly-fish is.  Looks like jelly but stings like a nettle.  And now, Mister Bondy, listen to this.  I've got it underlined.  Sergeant killed a small shark with the knife.  Seventy pounds weight.  So there you see it, Mister Bondy," Captain J. van Toch declared in triumph.  "Here it is in black and white.  That was the big day, lad.  To be precise, the thirteenth of July last year."  The captain closed his notes.  "I'm not ashamed to admit it, Mister Bondy; I knelt down on the shore by that Devil Bay and wept for sheer joy.  I knew then that my tapa-boys would not give up.  Sergeant got a lovely new harpoon as a reward - a harpoon is best if you're going to go hunting sharks, lad - and I said to him, be a man, Sergeant, and show these tapa-boys they can defend themselves.  And do you know," here the captain raised his voice, jumped up and thumped the table in his excitement, "within three days there was a dead shark floating in the bay, horribly mutilated, full of gashes.  And all the gashes made by this harpoon."  The captain gulped down some more beer.  "That's just how it was, Mister Bondy.  It was then that I made a kind of a contract with these tapa-boys.  That is, I gave them my word that if they would bring me these pearl oysters then I would give them these harpoons and knives for them to defend themselves, see?  That's fair business.  Whatever he does, a man should be honest even to animals like these.  And I gave them some wood too, and two iron wheelbarrows for them to carry the stones for the dam.  And the poor things had to pull everything in those tiny hands of theirs. Terrible for them, that's how it was.  And I wouldn't have wanted to cheat them.  Hold on, lad, I'll show you something."  Captain van Toch lifted his belly with one hand and with the other pulled a canvas bag out of his trouser pocket.  "Look what I've got here," he said, and emptied it out onto the table.  There was a thousand pearls there of all different sizes: some as small as a seed, some the size of a pea and some of them were the size of a cherry; perfectly round pearls, lumpy and irregular pearls, silvery pearls, blue pearls, yellowish pearls like persons skin and pearls of all colours from black to pink.  G.H. Bondy's jaw dropped; he could not help himself and had to touch them, roll them around in the tips of his fingers, cover them in both his hands.

            "These are beautiful," he sighed in wonder and amazement.  "Captain, this is like a dream!"

            "Ja," said the captain without emotion.  "They are nice.  And that year that I was down there they killed about thirty of those sharks.  I've got it written down here," he said, tapping on his breast pocket.  "And all with the knives I'd given them, them and the five harpoons.  Those knives cost me nearly two American dollars a piece.  Very good knives, lad, stainless steel, won't go rusty in the water, not even sea water.  And those Bataks cost me a lot of money too. 

            "What Bataks?"

            "Those native Bataks on that island.  They think the tapa-boys are some kind of demon and they're terribly afraid of them.  And when they saw me talking with these demons of theirs they just wanted to kill me.  All night long they were banging on a kind of gong so that they would chase the demons away from their village.  Made a Hell of a noise.  And then in the morning they wanted me to pay them for it.  For all the work they'd had in doing it.  For what it's worth, I can tell you that these Bataks are terrible thieves.  But the tapa-boys, the lizards, you can do honest business with them.  Very good honest business, Mister Bondy."  To Mister Bondy it seemed like he was in a fairy tale. 

            "Buying pearls from them?"

            "Ja.  Only there aren't any pearls left now in Devil Bay, and on other islands there aren't any tapa-boys.  And that's the whole problem, lad."  Captain J. van Toch looked up as if in triumph.  "And that's the big business that I thought out in my head.  "Listen lad," he said, stabbing the air with his chubby finger, "there's a lot more of those lizards there now than when I first found them!  They can defend themselves now, you see.  Eh?  And there are going to be more and more of them!  Now then, Mister Bondy, don't you think this is a fantastic business opportunity?"

            "I still don't quite see," replied G.H. Bondy uncertainly, "what exactly it is you have in mind, Captain."

            "To transport these tapa-boys to other islands where there are other pearl-fishing grounds," the captain finally exclaimed.  I saw myself how these lizards can't get across the deep and open sea.  They can swim for a little way and they can walk a little way along the seabed, but where the sea is very deep the pressure there is too much for them;  they're very soft, you see.  But if I had some sort of ship with some kind of tank built into it for them I could take them wherever I wanted, see?  And there they could look for the pearls and I would follow behind and provide them with the knives and harpoons and anything else they need.  The poor lads increased their population so much in Devil Bay that they soon won't have enough there to eat.  They eat the smallest of the fish and molluscs, and those water insects they have there; but they can eat potatoes too, and rusks and ordinary things like that.  So that means they could be fed while they're in the tanks on the ship.  And I could let them out into the water in suitable places where there aren't many people and there I could have sort of .. sort of farms for these lizards of mine.    And I'd want them to be able to feed themselves, these animals.  They're very likable, Mister Bondy, and very clever too.  And when you see them, lad, you'll say, Hullo Captain, useful animals you've got here.  Ja.  And they're mad about pearls now, just like people.  That's the big business I thought up."

            All this left G.H. Bondy in some embarrassment and confusion.  "I'm very sorry, Captain," he began hesitantly, "I ... I really don't know ... "  The clear blue eyes of Captain J. van Toch filled with tears. 

            "That is not good, lad.  I could leave you all these pearls here as .. as collateral for the ship, but I can't buy the ship all by myself.  I know of a very good ship here in Rotterdam ... it's fitted with a diesel engine .."

            "Why did you not suggest this business to someone in Holland?"  The captain shook his head. 

            "I know these people, lad.  I can't talk about this sort of thing with them.  They," he said thoughtfully, "would make me carry all sorts of other things on the ship, and I'd have to sell them all round these islands.  Ja.  That's something I could do.  I know a lot of people, Mister Bondy.  And at the same time I could have the tanks on board with my lizards in them..."

            "That's something it might well be worth thinking about," considered G.H. Bondy.  "As it happens, you see ... Well you see we need to find new markets for our products, and I was talking about this with some people not long ago.  I would need to buy one or two ships, one for south America and the other for these eastern places ..."  The captain became more lively. 

            "That's very wise of you, Mister Bondy.  Ships are very cheap right now, you could buy a whole harbour full of them ..."  The captain launched into a deep and technical explanation of what vessels are for sale where and at what prices and boats and tank-steamers; G.H. Bondy did not listen to him but merely watched; G.H. Bondy was a good judge of character.  He had not taken Captain van Toch's story about the lizards seriously for one moment; but the captain himself was somebody worth taking seriously.  Honest, yes.  And he knew his way around down there.  Mad, obviously.  But very likeable.  All this struck a chord in G.H. Bondy's heart and chimed with his love of fantasy.  Ships carrying pearls and coffee, ships with spices and all the scents of Arabia.  There was a particular, indescribable feeling that G.H. Bondy had before each major and successful decision he made; a sensation which might have been expressed in words thus:  It's true I don't really know why, but I think I'll go along with this.  He had this feeling now.  Meanwhile Captain van Toch was waving his enormous hands in the air to outline ships with awning decks or quarter decks, fantastic ships, lad ...

            "I'll tell you what, Captain Vantoch," G.H. Bondy suddenly said, "come back here in two weeks time.  We can talk about this ship again then."  Captain van Toch understood just how much these words meant.  He blushed in happiness and said,

            "And what about the lizards, can I take them on my ship too?"

            "Yes, of course.  Only please don't mention them to anyone.  People would think you've gone mad - and so would I."

            "And can I leave these pearls here with you?"

            "Yes, if you want to."

            "Ja, but I'll choose two of the nicest of them that I need to send off to someone."

            "Who's that?"

            "Just a couple of newspaper men I know, lad.  Oh Hell, wait a minute."

            "What is it?"

            "What the Hell were their names?"  Captain van Toch blinked his blue eyes thoughtfully.  "This head of mine is so stupid, lad.  I've completely forgotten what those two lads were called."

 

 

5 - HOW CAPTAIN J. VAN TOCH TRAINED THE LIZARDS

 

            "Well I'm blowed," said a man in Marseille.  "It's Jensen, isn't it?"  Jensen, the Swede, raised his eyes.

            "Wait," he said, "and don't say a word until I've placed you."  He put his hand to his brow.  "The Seagull, wasn't it?  No.  Empress of India?  No.  Pernambuco?  No.  I've got it.  Vancouver.  Five years ago on the Vancouver, Osaka Line, Frisco.  And your name is Dingle, you rascal, Irish."  The man grinned and exposed his yellow teeth as he sat down to join Jensen.

            "Dat's right, Jensen.  And if there's a drink goin I'll have it, whatever it is.  What brings you to dese parts?"  Jensen nodded toward the dock.

            "I do the Marseille to Saigon route these days. And you?"

            "I'm on leave," said Dingle with a swagger.  "I'm on me way home to see how many children I've got now."  Jensen nodded his head earnestly. 

            "So they sacked you again, did they?  Drunk on duty were you?  If you went to the YMCA like I do then ..."  Dingle grinned cheerfully.

            "Dey've got a YMCA here, you mean?"

            "Today is Saturday," Jensen grumbled.  "And where have you been sailing?"

            "On a kind of a tramp steamer," said Dingle evasively.  "All the islands you can tink of down under."

            "Captain?"

            "Some fella called van Toch.  Dutchman or sometin."  Jensen the Swede became thoughtful. 

            "Captain van Toch.  I have travelled with him also, brother, some years back.  Ship: the Kandong Bandoeng.  Line: from demon to Devil.  Fat, bald and able to swear in Malay for better effect.  I know him well."

            "Was he already such a lunatic in dem days?"  The Swede shook his head.

            "Old man Toch is all right."

            "And had he started carrying dem lizards of his about wid him by den?" 

            "No."  Jensen thought for a while.  "I heard something about that ... in Singapore.  Someone was talking all that rubbish there."  The Irishman seemed somewhat offended.

            "Dat is not rubbish, Jensen.  Dat's de holy truth about dese lizards."

            "This man in Singapore, he said it was true as well," the Swede grumbled.  "So I gave him a smack in the teeth," he added in triumph.

            "Well just you listen to me," Dingle defended himself.  "I ought to know about dese tings, cause I've seen dese brutes wid me own eyes."

            "So have I," mumbled Jensen.  "Almost black, with a tail about six feet long, and they run about on two feet.  I know."

            "Hideous brutes," shuddered Dingle.  "Notting but warts.  Holy Mary, I wouldn't touch em for anyting.  And I'm sure dey must be poisonous and all!"

            "Why not?" grumbled the Swede.  "Listen.  I served once on a ship that was full of people.  All over the upper deck and the lower deck, nothing but people, full of women and all that sort of thing, dancing and playing cards.  I was the stoker there, see.  And now you tell me, you idiot, which do you think is more poisonous?"

            Dingle spat.  "Well if it's Caymans you're talking about, den I won't say notting against you.  There was one time I was takin a shipload of snakes to a zoo, from Bandjarmasin they were, and God how they stank!  But dese lizards, Jensen, dese are some very strange animals were talkin about.  All through the day they stay in that tank o water o theirs; but in the night they climb up out of it - tip-tap tip-tap tip-tap - and the whole ship was crawlin wid em.  Stood up on their hind legs, they did, twistin their heads round to get a good look at you ..."  The Irishman crossed himself.  "And they'd go ts-ts-ts at you, just like dem whores in Hong Kong.  God forgive me, but I tink there's sometin funny going on there.  If it wasn't so hard to get a job I wouldn't have stayed there a minute, Jens.  Not one minute."

            "Aha," said Jensen.  "So that is why you are running home to your mummy, is it?"

            "Well, dat's part of it.  Just to stay there at all a fella had to keep drinking a Hell of a lot, and you know the captains got a ting about that.  And the funny ting is, they say that one day I kicked one o the horrors.  D'ye hear dat, kicked one o dem, and kicked it so hard that I broke its spine.  You should have seen how the captain went on about it; he turned blue, lifted me up by the neck and he would have thrown me overboard into the water if Gregory, the mate, hadn't been there.  D'ye know Gregory?"  The Swede merely nodded.  "That's enough now, Captain, says the mate, and he pours a bucket of water over me head.  So in Kokopo I went on shore."  Mister Dingle spat in a long, flat curve.  "The old man cares more about dem vermin then he does about people.  D'ye know he taught em how to speak?  On my soul, he used to shut himself in wid em and spend hours talking to them.  I tink he's trainin em for a circus or sometin.  But the strangest ting of all is that then he lets them out into the water.  He'd weigh anchor by some pathetic little island, take a boat out to the shore and check how deep it is there;  then he'd come back to these tanks, open the hatch in the side o the ship and let these vermin out into the water.  And you should see them jumpin out through this hatch one after the other like trained seals, ten or twenty o them.  Then in the night old Toch would row out to the shore again with some kind o crates.  And no-one was ever allowed to know what was in them.  Then we'd sail on again somewhere else.  So that's how it is wid old Toch, Jens.  Very strange.  Very, very strange."  Mister Dingle's eyes lost their sparkle.  "Almighty God, Jens, it gave me the creeps!  And I drank, Jens, drank like a lunatic; and in the night, when there was this tip-tappin all over the ship, and you could hear them going ts-ts-ts, sometimes I'd tink it was just because of the drink.  I'd already had that once in Frisco, well you already know about that, don't you Jensen; only in them days it was just millions of spiders I saw.  De-li-rium, the doctors called it in the sailor-hospital.  Well, I don't know.  But then I asked Big Bing about it, whether he'd been seein tings in the night and all, and he said he had been.  Said he'd seen them wid his own eyes how one o these lizards turned the handle on the door and went into the captains cabin.  Well, I don't know; this Joe, he was a Hell of a drinker and all.  What do you tink, Jens, do you tink Bing had this de-lirium too?  What do you tink?"  Jensen the Swede merely shrugged his shoulders.  "And dat German fella, Peters, he said that when they rowed the captain down to the shore in the Manihiki Islands they hid behind some boulders and watched what the old man was doing wid dem crates of his.  Now he says them lizards opened the crates all by themselves, that the old man gave them the chisel to do it with.  And d'you know what was in them crates?  Knives, he said.  Great big long knives and harpoons and that sort o  ting.  Now I don't believe a word of what Peters said meself cause he has to wear them glasses on his nose, but it's very strange all the same.  Now what do you tink of all this?" 

            The veins on Jensen's brow bulged.  "What I think of this," he growled, "is that this German of yours in sticking his nose into things that are none of his business, understand?  And I can tell you I don't think that's wise of him."

            "You'd better write and tell him, then," smirked the Irishman.  "The safest address to write to would be Hell, you can get hold of him there.  And d'you know what it is that I find strange about all o dis?  That old Toch goes and visits those lizards of his now and then, down in whatever place he's set them down in.  'Pon my soul, Jens.  He has himself put down on shore in de middle o de night and doesn't come back till mornin.  Now you tell me, Jensen, what is it he goes down there for?  And you tell me, what is it he's got in dem parcels he sends off to Europe?  Parcels as big as this, look, and he has them insured for up to a thousand pounds."

            "How do you know that?" asked the Swede, scowling even more.

            "A fella knows what he knows," replied Mister Dingle evasively.  "And do you know where old Toch got dese lizards from?  From Devil Bay.  Now there's a fella I know down there, an agent he is, and an educated man, like, and he told me that dese tings are not trained lizards.  Nottin o de sort.  And if anyone says dese are nottin more than animals you can go and tell dat to the fairies.  And don't let anyone tell you otherwise, lad."  Mister Dingle gave a significant wink.  "Dat's how it is, Jensen, just so's you know.  And are you gonna tell me now that Captain van Toch is alright?"

            "Say that again," grunted the big Swede threateningly.

            "If old man Toch was alright he wouldn't be carrying demons round the world wid him ... and he wouldn't be settlin em down in all the islands he can find like lice in a fur coat.  Listen, just in the time that I was on board wid him he must have settled a good couple o thousand o them.  The old mans sold his soul, man.  And I know what it is that these devils are givin him for it.  Rubies and pearls and all o that sort o ting.  And you can well believe he wouldn't be doin it for nottin."

            Jens Jensen turned a deep red.  "And what business is it of yours?" he yelled, slamming his hand down on the table.  "You mind your own damned business!"  Little Dingle jumped back in alarm. 

            "Please," he stuttered in confusion, "what's suddenly ... I was only telling you what it was I'd seen.  And if you like, ... it was just the impression I got.  This is you, Jensen, I can tell you it's all just delirium if dat's what you want.  You needn't get cross wid me like dat, Jensen.  I've already had that meself once in Frisco, you know about that.  Serious case it was, that's what the doctors in the sailor-hospital said.  You have me word of honour I saw these lizards or demons or whatever they were.  But maybe there weren't any."

            "You did see them, Pat," said the Swede gloomily.  "I saw them too."

            "No Jens," answered Dingle, "you were just delirious.  He's all right, old man Toch, only he shouldn't be carryin demons about all round the world.  Tell you what, once I get back home I'll have a mass said for the good of his soul.  Hang me if I don't."

            "We don't do that in our faith," said Jensen, deep in thought and quieter now.  "And do you really think it would help someone to have a mass said for him?"

            "Enormous help," exclaimed the Irishman.  "I've heard of lots of cases in Ireland when it's been of help, even in the most serious cases.  Even when it's involved demons and the like."

            "Then I shall also have a Catholic mass said for him," Jens Jensen decided.  "Only I'll have it done here in Marseille.  I think they'll do it cheaper in the big church here, factory prices."

            "You could be right there, but an Irish mass is better.  You see, in Ireland they've got these priests that really can work magic.  Just like some fakir or pagan."

            "Listen Pat," said Jensen, "I would give you twelve francs for this mass here and now.  But you are riff-raff, brother; you would just drink it."

            "Now Jens, man, d'ye tink I'd take a sin like dat on meself?  But listen, just so that you'll believe me I'll write you out an IOU for that twelve francs, will that do you?"

            "That would be all right," thought the Swede, who liked to see things done properly.  Mister Dingle borrowed a pen and a piece of paper and laid it out flat on the table. 

            "Now what am I to write down here?"  Jens Jensen looked over the Irishman's shoulder.

            "So write down at the top that this is a receipt."  And Mister Dingle, slowly and with his slimey tongue protruding from his mouth with the effort of it, wrote:

 

RECEET

I CONFERM THAT I HAVE RECEEVED FROM

JENS JENSEN THE SOM OF 12 FRANCS FOR

A MASS FOR THE SOUL OF CAPTAIN TOCH

                                       PAT DINGLE

 

            "Is dat all right, like dat?" asked Mister Dingle uncertainly.  "And which of us is going keep dis piece o  paper?

            "You are of course, you fool," said the Swede.  "A receipt is so that a person won't forget he has been given money."

            Mister Dingle drank those twelve francs away in Le Havre.  He also, instead of going to Ireland, sailed off down to Djibouti; in short, that mass was never said, with the result that no higher power ever did interfere in the course of the events to follow.

 

6 - THE YACHT IN THE LAGOON

 

            Mister Abe Loeb squinted into the setting sun; he would have like in some way to express how beautiful it was, but his sweetheart, Li, alias Miss Lily Valley, whose real name was Miss Lilian Nowak and who was known in short as golden-haired Li, White Lily, Lily Longlegs and all the other names she had been called during her seventeen years, slept on the warm sand, nestled in a fluffy bathing gown and curled up like a sleeping dog.  That is why Abe said nothing about the beauty of the world and merely sighed, scratching his naked feet because there was sand on them.  Out there on the ocean was the yacht named after Gloria Pickford; Abe had been given the yacht by his father for passing his university entrance exam.  His father was a great guy.  Jesse Loeb, film magnate and so on.  Abe, said the old man, go and get to know something of the world and take a few of your friends with you.  Jesse Loeb was a truly great guy.  Gloria Pickford lay out there on the pearly waters and next to him, in the warm sand, lay his sweetheart, Li.  Abe sighed with happiness.  She was sleeping like a little child, poor thing.  Abe felt a yearning to protect her somehow.  I really ought to marry her, thought the young Mister Loeb to himself, and as he did so he was tortured with the beautiful feeling in his heart that comes when a firm decision is mixed with fear.  Mamma Loeb would be unlikely to agree to it and Papa Loeb made decisions with his hands:  You're crazy, Abe.  His parents would be unable to understand it, and that was all there was to it.  And Mister Abe, sighing with tenderness, covered the white ankle of his sweetheart with the tip of her bathing gown.  How come I've got such hairy feet? he thought, absent mindedly.

            God it's beautiful here, so beautiful.  It's a shame that Li can't see it.  Mister Abe looked at her charming outline, and through some vague association began to thing about art.  This was because his sweetheart, Li, was an artist.  A film artist.  True, she had never actually been in any films, but she was quite certain she would become the greatest film actress ever; and when Li was certain of something that was what happened.  That was what Mamma Loeb couldn't understand; an artist is simply an artist, and she can't be like other girls.  And anyway, other girls were no better than she was, Mister Abe decided; that Judy on the yacht, for instance, a rich girl like her - and Abe knew that Fred went into her cabin.  Every night, in fact.  Whereas Li and I ... well Li just isn't like that.  I want Baseball Fred to have the best, Abe thought generously, he's a friend from university, but every night .. a rich girl like her oughtn't to do that.  I think that a girl from a family like Judy's ... and Judy isn't even an artist.  (That's what these girls sometimes gossip about, Abe remembered; with their eyes shining, and giggling ... I never talk about that sort of thing with Fred.)  (Li oughtn't to drink so many cocktails, she never knows what she's talking about afterwards.)  (This afternoon, for example, she didn't need to ...)  (I think she and Judy were arguing about who has nicer legs.  Why, it clearly has to be Li.  I know these things.)  (And Fred didn't have to have that dumb idea about a beautiful legs contest.  They might do that kind of thing on Palm Beach, but not in private company.  And the girls didn't have to lift their skirts so high.  That was more than just legs.  At least, Li didn't have to.  And right there in front of Fred!  And a rich girl like Judy didn't have to do it either.)  (Maybe I oughtn't to have called the captain over to be the judge.  That was dumb of me.  The captain went so red, and his mustache stuck out, and he excused himself and slammed the door.  Awful.  Just awful.  The captain didn't have to be so coarse about it.  And anyway, it's my yacht, isn't it?)  (True, the captain doesn't have a sweetheart with him on board; so how's he going to look on that sort of thing, poor man?  Seeing as he's got no choice but to be alone, I mean.)  (And why did Li cry when Fred said Judy has nice legs?  And then she said Fred was a brute, that he was spoiling the whole trip ... Poor Li!)  (And now the girls aren't talking to each other.  And when I wanted to talk to Fred Judy called him over like a dog.  Fred is my best friend after all.  And if he's Judy's lover of course he's going to say she has nicer legs!  True, he didn't have to be so emphatic about it.  That wasn't very tactful towards poor Li; Li is right when she says Fred is a self centered brute.  A heck of a brute.)  (I really didn't think the trip was going to turn out like this.  Devil take that Fred!) 

            Mister Abe realised that he was no longer looking blissfully out at the pearly ocean, but that he was scowling, scowling very hard.  He was anxious and no longer in a good mood.  Go out and see something of the world, Papa Loeb had said.  Well have we seen something of the world?  Mister Abe tried hard to remember what exactly it was he had seen, but he wasn't able to remember anything except how Judy and Li, his sweetheart, had shown their legs to Fred, big shouldered Fred, squatting down in front of them.  Abe scowled even harder.  What's this coral island called anyway?  Taraiva, the captain had said.  Taraiva, or Tahuara or Taraihatuara-ta-huara.  How about if we go back now, and I can say to old Jesse; Dad, we've been to Taraihatuara-ta-huara.  (If only I hadn't called the captain over, Mister Abe frowned.)  (I have to talk to Li so that she won't do that sort of thing.  God, why do I love her so much!  I'll talk to her as soon as she wakes up.  I'll tell her we ought to get married ...)  Mister Abe's eyes were full of tears; oh God, is this love or pain, or is this endless pain just part of me being in love with her?

            Sweetheart Li's eyes, made up in blue like a tender shell, fluttered.  "Abe," she called sleepily, "know what I've been thinking?  I've been thinking that on this island you could make a fan-tas-tic film."  Mister Abe sprinkled fine sand over his unfortunately hairy feet. 

            "Excellent idea, sweetheart.  And what sort of film?"  Sweetheart Li opened her boundless blue eyes.

            "Well how about .. Imagine I was stuck on this island like Robinson Crusoe.  A female Robinson Crusoe.  Don't you think that's a great new idea?"

            "Yeah," said Mister Abe uncertainly.  "And how would you have gotten onto this island?"

            "Easy," came her sweet reply. "Our yacht would just have been shipwrecked in a storm, and all of you would have been drowned, you and Judy and the captain and everyone."

            "And how about Fred?  Fred's a very strong swimmer."  Li's smooth brow became furrowed.

            "In that case, Fred will have to be eaten by a shark.  That'd be a great piece of detail," said Abe's sweetheart, clapping her hands as she did so.  "And Fred has a really beautiful body for it, don't you think?"  Mister Abe sighed.

            "And what happens after that?"

            "And then I'd be thrown unconscious onto the shore by a big wave.  I'd be wearing those pyjamas, the ones with the blue stripes you liked so much the other day."  She narrowed her eyes and looked at him in the tender way she had seen used to depict female seductiveness.  "And the film really needs to be in color, Abe.  Everyone says how much the color blue goes with my hair."

            "And who would find you here?" asked Mister Abe objectively."  His sweetheart thought for a while. 

            "No-one.  I wouldn't be a Robinson Crusoe if there were people here," she said with a surprising grasp of logic.  That's what would make it such a great role, because I'd always be on my own.  Just imagine it, Abe, Lily Valley in the title role and only role!"

            "And what would you be doing all through the film?"  Li leant up on her elbow.

            "I've got that all thought out.  I'd swim in the lagoon and I'd climb up on the rocks and sing."

            "In your pyjamas?"

            "Without my pyjamas," said Abe's sweetheart.  "Don't you think that'd be a great success?"

            "Well you can't do the whole film naked," grumbled Abe, who felt strongly opposed to the idea.

            "Why not?" answered his sweetheart in innocent surprise.  "Who'd be there to see me?"  Mister Abe said something that could not be properly heard.  "And then," Li considered, "and then ... I've got it.  Then I'd be captured by a gorilla, you know?  A gorilla that's really big and black and hairy."  Mister Abe went red, and tried to hide his damned hairy feet even deeper in the sand. 

            "They don't have any gorillas on this island," he objected, not very convincingly. 

            "Yes they do.  They've got every possible kind of animal here.  You have to look at it scientifically, Abe.  And a gorilla would go so well with my complexion.  Have you noticed how Judy has hairs on her legs?"

            "No," said Abe, somewhat displeased at this change of subject.

            "Awful legs," thought Abe's sweetheart as she looked down at her own.  "And as the gorilla carries me away in its arms a young and handsome wild man would come out of the jungle and knock it down." 

            "How would he be dressed?"

            "He'd have a bow and arrow," was his sweethearts unhesitating reply, "and a wreath on his head.  And this wild man would pick me up and take me to the cannibals' campfire."

            "There aren't any cannibals here," said Abe in defence of the island of Tahuara.

            "There are too!  And the cannibals would want to sacrifice me to their idols and they'd be singing like they do in Hawaii, you know, like those negroes in the Paradise Restaurant.  But one of the young cannibals would fall in love with me," sighed Abe's sweetheart, her eyes wide open in amazement, "and then another of the savages would fall in love with me, it could be the cannibal chief this time, and then a white man ..."

            "Where did this white man come from?" asked Abe, just to be sure.

            "Hell have been there from the start.  He could be a famous tenor who's fallen into the savages clutches.  That's so that he can sing in the film."

            "And what would he be wearing?"  Abe's sweetheart looked at her big to.

            "He should be ... he should be naked, just like the cannibals."  Mister Abe shook his head. 

            "Sweetheart, that wouldn't work.  Famous tenors are always horribly fat."

            "Oh, that's such a shame," lamented Abe's sweetheart.  "Maybe Fred could play that part and then the tenor could just do the singing, you know how they do that dubbing in films."

            "But Fred was eaten by a shark!"  Abe's sweetheart frowned. 

            "You don't need to be so realistic all the time, Abe.  I just can't talk about art with you.  And then this king of the cannibals would put strings and strings of pearls around my neck ... "

            "Where does he get them from?"

            "Why there's lots of pearls here," Li insisted.  "And then Fred gets jealous and boxes with him on the rocks overlooking the sea as it crashes on shore.  Don't you think Fred would have a fantastic silhouette against the sky?  Isn't that a great idea?  And then the two of them would fall into the sea ..."  This thought cheered Abe up slightly.  "And then you could have that detail with the shark.  Think how mad it would make Judy if Fred played in a film with me!  And I'd get married to this beautiful wild man."  The golden-haired Li jumped up from where she lay.  "I'd be standing here on the shore like this, outlined against the setting sun, entirely naked, and the film would slowly come to a close."  Li threw off her bathing gown.  "And now I'm going to go for a swim."

            "... You haven't got your bathing suit," pointed out Abe in alarm, looking out to the yacht to see if anyone was watching; but Li, his sweetheart, was already dancing across the sand to the lagoon.

            Suddenly, Abe heard a voice:  "Actually, she does look better with her clothes on."  The voice was brutally cool and critical.  Abe felt crushed at his lack of erotic admiration, he even felt almost guilty about it.  But, well, when Li is wearing her clothes and stockings she does, well, seem more beautiful somehow.  In his own defence, Abe considered that what he meant was more decent.  Well, that as well.  And nicer.  And why's she running like that?  And why do her thighs wobble like that?  And why ...  Stop this! Abe told himself in horror.  Li is the most beautiful girl that ever lived.  And I'm terribly in love with her.  "Even when she's got nothing on?" asked the cool and critical voice.  Abe turned his eyes away and looked at the yacht in the lagoon.  It was so beautiful, every line was perfect!  It's a shame that Fred isn't here.  If Fred were here we could talk about how beautiful the yacht is. 

            Meanwhile, Abe's sweetheart had reached the water and was standing in it up to her knees, her arms were stretched out to the setting Sun and she was singing.  She can go and swim in Hell, thought Abe in irritation.  But it had been nice while she was lying there curled up in a ball, wrapped in her bathing gown and with her eyes closed.  Dear Li.  And with a touching sigh, Abe kissed the sleeve of her bathing gown.  Yes, he was terribly in love with her.  So much in love it hurt. 

            There was a sudden, piercing scream from the lagoon.  Abe lifted himself up on his elbow so that he could see better.  Li, his sweetheart, was screaming, waving her arms in the air and rushing through the water to the shore, floundering and splashing water all around.  Abe jumped up and ran to her.  "What is it, Li?"  (Look at that stupid way she runs, the cool and critical voice remarked.  She throws her legs about.  She flaps her arms about.  It just isn't nice.  And she's even squawking as she does it, yes, she squawks.) "What's happened, Li?" called Abe as he ran to her assistance. 

            "Abe, Abe," squawked his sweetheart, and all of a sudden she was there hanging, cold and wet, around his neck.  "Abe there's some kind of animal out there!"

            "Why that's nothing," laughed Abe.  "It must be some kind of fish."

            "Not with an awful head like that," his sweetheart howled, and pressed her wet nose against Abe's breast.  Abe wanted to pat her on the shoulder like a father, but on her wet body it would have sounded more like a slap.

            "Alright, alright," he muttered, "look out there, there's nothing there any more."  Li looked out to the lagoon.

            "It was awful," she sighed, then suddenly started to howl again.  "There, there, you see it?"  There was the black head of something above the water slowly coming in to shore, its mouth opening and closing.  Abe's sweetheart Li screamed hysterically and set off in desperate flight away from the water.

            Abe did not know what he should do.  Should he run after Li so that she would not be so afraid?  Or should he stay where he was to show that he had no fear of this animal himself?  He chose, of course, the second option; strode towards the sea until he was up to his ankles in water and, his fists clenched, looked the creature in the eye.  The black head stopped coming closer, it swayed oddly, and said: Ts-ts-ts.  Abe was somewhat uneasy about this, but he could not possibly let it be seen.  "What is it you want?" he said sharply.

            "Ts-ts-ts," the head replied.

            "Abe, Abe, A-a-abe," sweetheart Li shrieked.

            "I'm coming," Abe replied, and he slowly (so that nobody would get the wrong idea) went back towards his girl.  He stopped and turned to look severely at the sea.  At the waters edge, where the sea never stops tracing its lacey patterns in the sand, there was some kind of dark-coloured animal standing on its hind legs.  Its head was round and its body swayed.  Abe stood where he was with his heart beating fast. 

            "Ts-ts-ts," said the animal. 

            "A-a-abe" wailed his sweetheart, close to fainting.  Abe walked backwards, step by step, without letting the animal out of his sight.  The animal did not move but merely turned its head to watch him.  At last, Abe was once more with his sweetheart, who was lying with her face to the ground and howling and blubbering with the horror of it. 

            "It's ... it's some kind of seal," said Abe uncertainly.  "We really ought to go back to the ship, Li."  But Li merely shuddered.  "There's nothing there to be frightened of," Abe insisted.  He wanted to kneel down beside Li, but it was his duty to stand like a knight in armour between her and the beast.  He wished he were wearing more than just bathing trunks, or that he had at least something like a penknife with him, or that he could find a stick. 

                        It was beginning to get dark.  The animal came closer again and stopped about thirty paces away.  And behind it were five, six, eight of the same animal appearing out of the sea and hesitantly, swaying and tip-tapping, they made their way to where Abe was protecting his sweetheart, Li.  "Don't look, Li," gasped Abe, although this was quite unnecessary as Li would not have looked for anything in the world.  More of the shadows came out of the sea and formed into a broad semi-circle.  By now there was about sixty of them, Abe reckoned.  That light patch was his sweetheart Li's bathing gown, the gown she had been asleep in only a short time before.  The animals had come as far as this light patch, which lay carelessly thrown down on the sand.

            Then Abe did something as natural and as nonsensical as the knight in the Schiller story who went into the lion's cage to fetch his lady's glove.  There are many natural and nonsensical things that men will keep on doing for as long as the world is still spinning.  Without thinking, and with his head erect and his fists clenched, Mister Abe Loeb went in among the animals to fetch the bathing gown belonging to his sweetheart, Li. 

            The animals stepped back slightly but did not run away.  Abe picked up the gown, threw it over his arm like a toreador and remained standing where he was.  "A-abe," came the desperate whine from behind him.

            Mister Abe felt a sense of boundless strength and nobility.  "What then?" he said to the animals, taking a step closer.  "What exactly is it you want?"

            "Ts-ts," hissed one of the animals, and then, in a rasping voice like an old mans, it barked, "Knife!"  The other animals, a little way away joined in, barking like the first: "Knife, knife, knife!"

            "A-abe!"

            "Don't be afraid, Li," Abe called back.

            "Li," came a bark from in front of him.  "Li."  "Li."

            "A-a-abe!"  To Abe it seemed like he was dreaming.

            "What is it?"

            "Knife!"

            "A-a-abe!" wailed his sweetheart.   "Come back here!"

            "Right away.  -  I don't have a knife.  I'm not going to hurt you.  What is it you want?"

            "Ts-ts," hissed another of them as it swayed its way across to him.  Abe stood with his legs apart, the gown still over his arm, but he did not retreat.  "Ts-ts," it said.

            "What is it you want?"  The animal seemed to be offering Abe its front paw, but Abe did not like this at all.  "What?" he said, somewhat sharply.

            "Knife," barked the animal, and dropped something whitish, like a beads, from its paw.  But they were not beads as they rolled across the sand.

            "A-abe," stammered Li.  "Don't leave me here!"

            By now, Mister Abe was no longer afraid.  "Get out of the way," he said, waving the bathing gown at the animals.  The animals made a sudden and hasty retreat.  It would now be possible for Abe to withdraw with honour, but so that Li would see what courage he had he stooped down to pick up the white things the animal had dropped from its paw and see what they were.  There were three of them, hard, smooth and round and with a dull sheen to them.  As it was getting dark, Mister Abe brought them up close to his eyes. 

            "A-abe," wailed his abandoned sweetheart, "Abe!"

            "I'm coming," Mister Abe called back.  "Li, I've got something here for you!  Li, Li, I'll bring it right over!"  With the bathing gown whirling above his head, Mister Abe Loeb ran across along the shore like a young god.

            Li was squatting a little way off and shaking.  "Abe," she sobbed as her teeth chattered.  "How could you, ... how could you ..."  The triumphant Abe knelt down in front of her.

            "Lily Valley, the gods of the sea, the Tritons, come to pay you homage.  I am to tell you that ever since Venus emerged from the foaming deep no artist has ever impressed them like you.  As proof of their awe they send you this."  Abe held out his hand.  "Look, three pearls."

            "Don't talk garbage, Abe," snorted his sweetheart, Li.

            "Honest, Li.  Take a look, they're genuine pearls!"

            "Let me see them," she whined, and with trembling hands reached out to touch the whitish spheres.  "Abe," she gasped, " they really are pearls!  Did you find them in the sand?"

            "But Li, Sweetheart, you don't just find pearls in the sand!"

            "Yes you do," his sweetheart insisted.  "You wash the sand off in a pan and there they are.  Didn't I tell you there must be lots of pearls round here?"

            "Pearls grow in kind of clams under the water," said Abe, almost sure of himself.  "But listen, Li, it was the tritons, they brought them for you?  They must have seen you while you were bathing.  They wanted to give them to personally, but you were so afraid ..."

            "But they're so ugly," exclaimed Li.  "Abe these are wonderful pearls.  I'm really fond of pearls!"  (Now she's beautiful, said the critical voice.  Kneeling here in the sand with the pearls on the palm of her hand ... yes, beautiful, it has to be said.)  "And those, those animals, did they really ..."

            "They're not animals, sweetheart.  They're the gods of the sea, they're called tritons."  This did not surprise his sweetheart in the slightest. 

            "Why, that's so nice of them.  They really are very sweet.  What do you think, Abe, do you think I ought to thank them in some way."

            "Aren't you afraid of them any more?"  Abe's sweetheart shuddered. 

            "Yes.  Abe, please, get me out of here!"

            "Well that means," said Abe, "we've got to get to our boat.  Come with me and don't be afraid."

            "But what if ... what if they're standing in our way, Abe?" shuddered Li.  "Couldn't you go out there to them on your own?  But you can't leave me here all by myself!"

            "I'll carry you in my arms," offered Mister Abe, the hero.

            "That would be all right," his sweetheart sighed.

            "But put your bathing gown on," grumbled Abe.

            "Right away."  Miss Li rearranged her famously golden hair with both hands.  "I must look an awful mess!  Abe, do you have any lipstick on you?"  Abe lay the bathing gown over her shoulders.

            "I think it's best just to go, Li!"

            "But I'm afraid," gasped his sweetheart.  Mister Abe took her up in his arms.  Li thought she was as light as a cloud.  Hell, she's heavier than you thought, isn't she, said the critical voice.  And now you've got both hands full, haven't you; if those animals do come at us, what then?  "Can't you run any faster?" his sweetheart suggested.

            "Sure," gasped Mister Abe, hardly able not to get his legs in a tangle.  By this time it was getting dark very fast.  Abe was getting closer to the broad semi-circle formed by the animals.

            "Hurry Abe, faster, faster," whispered Li.  The animals began to sway and gyrate the upper half of their bodies in their peculiar wave-like way.  "Quick, Abe, hurry, faster," his sweetheart whined as she kicked her legs about hysterically and jagging her silver-lacquered nails in Abe's neck.

            "For Gods sake, Li, give it a rest," Abe muttered.

            "Knife," came a barking voice from just beside them. 

            "Ts-ts-ts."

            "Knife."

            "Li."

            "Knife."

            "Knife."

            "Knife."

            "Li."

            They had already got past the semi-circle of animals, and Abe felt he could run no further through the damp sand.  "You can put me down, now," said his sweetheart, just as Abe's legs were about to give way.  He wiped the sweat from his brow as he panted for breath. 

            "Get into the boat, quick," he ordered his sweetheart.  The semi-circle of dark shapes had turned to face Li and was coming closer.

            "Ts-ts-ts."

            "Knife."

            "Knife."

            "Li."

            But Li did not scream.  Li did not run away in terror.  Li raised her arms to the sky, the bathing gown slipped off her shoulders, and naked and with both hands she waved to the swaying forms, blowing kisses to them as she did.  On her trembling lips there appeared something which could only be called a charming smile.  "You're so sweet," she stuttered in her squeaky voice, and stretched her white hands out once again to the swaying shadows.

            "Come and give me a hand, Li," Abe ordered somewhat sharply as he pushed the boat out into the water.  Sweetheart Li picked up her bathing gown. 

            "Goodbye, my darlings!"  There was a sound of splashing as the shadows made their way into the water.  "So hurry up, Abe," hissed his sweetheart as she paddled out to the boat.  "They've nearly reached us!"  Mister Abe Loeb was making desperate exertions to get the boat out into the water when sweetheart Li stepped into it to add to the weight, still fluttering her hand about.  "Go over to the other side, Abe, they can't see me."

            "Knife."

            "Ts-ts-ts."

            "A-abe."

            "Knife, ts, knife."          

            "Ts-ts."

            "Knife!"

            At last the boat was bobbing on the waves.  Mister Abe clambered into it and leant with all his strength on the oars.  One of the oars struck against something slippery.

            Sweetheart Li made a deep sigh.  "Aren't they so sweet?  And wasn't I just perfect?"  Mister Abe rowed out to the yacht with all the strength he had. 

            "Put your bathing gown on, Li," he replied somewhat drily. 

            "I think I was a great success," asserted Miss Li.  "And those pearls, Abe, what do you think they're worth?"  For a moment, Mister Abe stopped rowing. 

            "I think you needn't have shown so much of yourself, sweetheart."  Miss Li felt slightly offended. 

            "Well what if I did?  Anyone can see that you're not an artist, Abe Loeb.  And now, if you don't mind, keep rowing; I'm getting cold in just this gown!"

           

7 - THE YACHT IN THE LAGOON (continued)

 

            On board the Gloria Pickford that evening there were no personal quarrels, but scientific theories were bandied noisily.  Fred (loyally supported by Abe) judged that it must certainly have been some kind of lizard, whereas the captain decided on a mammal.  There aren't any lizards in the sea, the captain insisted angrily; but the young men from the university gave him no credence; and lizards are somehow more of a sensation.  Sweetheart Li contented herself with the belief that they were tritons, that they were so sweet, and it was altogether such a success; and (in the blue striped pyjamas that Abe liked so much) her eyes shone as she dreamt of pearls and of gods of the sea.  Judy, of course, was convinced it was all just humbug and nonsense and that Li and Abe had thought the whole thing up.  She made furious signs to Fred that he should just leave it.  Abe thought that Li should have told them about how he, Abe, went fearlessly among these lizards to fetch her bathing gown; which is why he told them three times about how Li faced them down while he, Abe, pushed the boat out into the water, and he was about to tell them for a fourth time except that Fred and the captain were not listening as they argued passionately about lizards and mammals.  (As if it even mattered what they were, thought Abe.)  In the end Judy yawned and said she was going to bed; she looked meaningfully at Fred, but Fred had just remembered that before the Flood there were all sorts of strange and ancient lizards with names like diplosaurus and bigosaurus or something like that and I can assure you they walked on their hind legs;  Fred had seen them himself in a strange picture in an educational book as big as this.  An amazing book, and it's something you should see for yourself. 

            "Abe," came the voice of his sweetheart, Li.  "I've got a fantastic idea for a film."

            "What's that, Li?"

            "It's something amazingly original.  You see, our yacht has sunk and I'm the only survivor on this island.  And I'd live there like a female Robinson Crusoe."

            "And what would you do there?" objected the captain with some skepticism.

            "Well I'd go swimming and that sort of thing," was sweetheart Li's simple reply.  "And then these tritons from the sea would fall in love with me and they'd bring me lots and lots of pearls.  You know, just like it really happened.   It could even be a nature film or an educational film, don't you think?  Something like Trader Horn."

            "Li's right," declared Fred suddenly.  "We ought to go down tomorrow evening and film these lizards."

            "These mammals, you mean," the captain corrected him.

            "Me, he means," said Li, "as I'm standing among these tritons."

            "But wearing your bathing gown," Abe interjected.

            "I would have my white bathing suit on," said Li.  "And Greta would have to do my hair properly.  Today I looked just awful."

            "Who would do the filming?"

            "Abe.  So that he has something to do.  And Judy would have to hold the lights if it's already getting dark."

            "What about Fred?"

            "Fred would be carrying a bow and arrow and have a wreath on his head, and then if the tritons want to carry me away he can stop them."

            "Well thanks a lot," Fred grinned.  "I think I'd rather have a revolver, though.  I think the captain should be there, too."  The captain's military moustache bristled.

            "Don't you worry about a thing.  I'll make sure I do everything that needs doing."

            "Three members of the crew, sir.  And properly armed, sir."  Sweetheart Li lit up in charming astonishment.

            "Do you really think it's that dangerous, captain?"

            "I don't think anything, girl," the captain grumbled, "but I have my orders from Mister Jesse Loeb - at least where Mister Abe is concerned."  All the gentlemen threw themselves into a passionate discussion of all the details of the undertaking; Abe winked to his sweetheart, it was already time for her to go to bed.  Li obediently went. 

            "You know, Abe," she said to him in her cabin "I think this is going to be a fantastic film!"

            "It will be, my love," Mister Abe agreed as he tried to kiss her.

            "Not tonight, Abe," said his love as she pushed him away.  "You must understand that I really have to concentrate."

 

            Miss Li continued to concentrate all the next day, causing a great deal of work for her poor maid, Greta.  There were bath with essential salts and essences, washing her hair with Nurblond shampoo, massage, pedicure, manicure, hairdressing, ironing, trying on and alterations of clothes, and many other different kinds of preparation; even Judy was drawn into the bustle and did what she could do help Li.  (At times of difficulty, women can be remarkably loyal to each other.  Dressing is one such time.)  While all this feverish rush was occupying Miss Li's cabin the gentlemen were fending for themselves, and with ash trays and glasses of strong drink on the table in front of them they worked out a strategic plan about who would stand where and who would take care of what if anything happened; and in the process the captains dignity in the serious question of who would hold command was injured several times.  In the afternoon the filming equipment was taken down to the shore of the lagoon, along with a small machine gun, a basket with food and cutlery, a shotgun, a gramophone and other military requisites; all of it perfectly concealed under palm leaves.  The three armed members of the crew, with the captain in the function of commander in chief, were in position well before it began to get dark, and then an enormous basket containing a few small things Miss Lily Valley might need was taken to the shore.  Then Fred came down with Miss Judy.  And then the Sun began to set in all its tropical glory. 

            Meanwhile, Mister Abe was already tapping on the door of Miss Li's cabin for the tenth time.  "Sweetheart, it really is time to go now!"

            "I'm coming, I'm coming," his sweetheart's voice replied, "but please don't make me nervous!  I have to get myself ready, don't I?"

            The captain had his eye on the situation.  Out on of the bay he could see a long, glittering band where the waves of the sea met the smooth and level surface of the lagoon.  It's as if there were some kind of weir or breakwater under the water there, he thought; it could be sand, or a coral reef, but it looks almost as if it were artificial.  Strange place.  Here and there on the peaceful surface of the lagoon a black head would appear and make its way to the shore.  The captain pursed his lips and reached uneasily for his revolver.  It would have been better, he thought, if the women had stayed on board the yacht.  Judy began to shiver and held tightly onto Fred.  He's so strong, she thought, God I love him so much!

            Eventually the last boat set out from the yacht.  It contained Miss Lily Valley in a white bathing suit and a diaphanous dressing gown, in which, clearly, she was to be thrown up from the sea like a castaway; it also contained Miss Greta and Mister Abe.  "Can't you row any faster, Abe," his sweetheart reproached him.  Mister Abe saw the black heads as they moved towards the shore and said nothing. 

            "Ts-ts."

            "Ts."

            Mister Abe pulled the boat up onto the sand and helped Li and Miss Greta out of it.  "Hurry over to the camera, now," whispered the artist, "and when I say Now, start filming."

            "But we won't be able to see anything," Abe objected.

            "Then Judy will just have to put the lights on.  Greta!"

            While Mister Abe Loeb took up his place at the camera the artist positioned herself on the sand like a dying swan and Miss Greta adjusted the folds of her dressing gown.  "Make sure they can see something of my legs," the artist whispered.  "Is that it now?  Okay, so move back!  Abe, Now!" 

            Abe began turning the handle.  "Judy, lights!"  But no lights came on.  Swaying shadows were emerging from the sea and coming closer to Li.  Greta pushed her hand into her mouth so that she would not scream.  "Li," called Mister Abe, "Li, run!"

            "Knife!"

            "Ts-ts-ts."

            "Li."

            "Li."

            "A-abe!"

            Somebody removed the safety catch on his revolver.  "Don't shoot, damn it!" hissed the captain. 

            "Li," called Abe and stopped filming.  "Judy, lights!"

            Li slowly and languidly stood up and raised her hands to the sky.  The flimsy dressing gown slid down off her shoulders, and there was Lily in all her whiteness, stretching her lovely arms above her head as castaways do when they recover from having fainted.  Mister Abe began angrily to turn the handle.  "For Gods sake, Judy, put the lights on!"

            "Ts-ts-ts!"

            "Knife."

            "Knife."

            "A-be!"

            The swaying black shadows formed a ring around Li in all her whiteness.  But wait, this was no longer a game.  Li no longer had her arms stretched up above her head, she was pushing something away from herself and screaming, "Abe, Abe, one of them touched me!"  Just then a blinding glare of lights came on, Abe was quickly turning the handle, Fred and the captain ran towards Li with their revolvers, and Li was crouching on the sand shrieking with horror.  At the same time, the fierce light showed tens or hundreds of long dark shadows slipping into the sea as if fleeing from it.  At the same time two divers threw a net over one of the shadows as it fled. At the same time Greta fainted and fell to the ground like an empty sack.  At the same time two or three shots rang out and caused large splashes in the sea, the two divers with the net were lying on something which twisted and coiled under them, and the light in the hands of Miss Judy went out.

            The captain switched on his pocket torch.  "Children, is everyone alright?"

            "One of them touched my leg," wailed sweetheart Li.  "Oh Fred, it was awful!"  then Mister Abe ran up with his torch. 

            "Hey, that was great, Li," he declared enthusiastically, "but I wish Judy had put the lights on earlier"

            "The wouldn't go on," exclaimed Judy.  "They wouldn't go on, would they Fred."

            "Judy was afraid," Fred apologised for her. "But she didn't do it on purpose, I swear, did you Judy."  Judy felt insulted, but in the meantime the two divers had arrived, dragging behind them something in the net that was thrashing about like an enormous fish. 

            "So here it is, Captain.  And it's alive."

            "The damned brute squirted some kind of poison at us.  My hands are covered in blisters.  And it hurts like Hell."

            "And it touched me as well," whined Miss Li.  "Abe, put the lights on!  I want to see if I've got any blisters."

            "No, sweetheart, there's nothing there," Abe assured here; he was going to kiss the spot just above her knee, but his sweetheart was anxiously rubbing at it.

            "It was so cold, brr," sweetheart Li complained.

            "You dropped one of your pearls, ma'am," said one of the divers as he handed over the little ball he had picked up from the sand. 

            "Gee, look Abe," Miss Li squealed, "they brought more pearls for me!  All of you come and look for the pearls!  There must be lots of pearls round here that the poor animals brought for me!  Aren't they sweet, Fred?  Here's another one!"

            "Here's one too!"  The three pocket torches were pointed down to the ground.

            "I've found one that's enormous!"

            "That belongs to me!" shouted sweetheart Li.

            "Fred," came the icy voice of Miss Judy.

            "Be right with you," said Fred as he crawled about the sand on his knees.

            "Fred, I want to go back to the ship!"

            "Somebody'll take you there," Fred told her as he continued searching.  "Hey, this is fun!"  Li and the three men continued crawling about in the sand.

            "I've got three pearls here," the captain declared.

            "Show me, show me," squealed Li excitedly and, still on her knees, ran over to him.  Just then, there was a sudden glare of magnesium light and the sound of the handle on the camera being turned. 

            "Now I've got you," declared Judy vengefully.  "This is going to be a great shot for the papers.  Americans look for pearls.  Marine reptiles throw pearls to people."  Fred sat down.

            "Christ, Judy's right guys; we've got to tell the press about this!"  Li sat down.

            "Judy is so nice.  Judy, take us again, only this time from the front!"

            "That wouldn't do you any favors, honey," opined Judy.

            "Listen," said Mister Abe, "we really ought to keep on searching.  The tides coming in."

            In the darkness, at the edge of the sea, a black and swaying shadow appeared.  Li screamed:  "There ... there ..."  The three torches were turned in that direction.  It was only Greta on her knees, looking for pearls in the dark.

 

            On Li's lap was the captain's cap with twenty-one pearls in it.  Abe poured the drinks and Judy played the gramophone.  It was an idyllic, starry night with the eternal sound of the sea.

            ""So what are we going to call it?" Fred insisted.  " Milwaukee industrialists daughter films prehistoric reptiles. "

            " Primordial lizards praise youth and beauty, "  suggested Abe poetically. 

            " SS Gloria Pickford discovers unknown species, "  the captain advised.  Or " The mystery of Tahuara Island. "

            "Those are just sub-titles," said Fred.  "A title really to say more than that."

            "How about: Baseball Fred in struggle with monsters, " Judy suggested.  "Fred was fantastic when they came at him.  I hope that came out all right on film!"

            The captain cleared histhroat.  "Actually Miss Judy, I was the first on the scene, but we neednt talk about that.  I think the title ought to have a scientific sound to it, sir.  Something formal  and ... well, scientific.  Anteliduvian fauna on Pacific island."

            " Anteviludian," Fred corrected him.  "No, wait, Anteduvidian.  Hell, hows it supposed to go?  Anteduvidual.  Antedinivian.  No, thats not it.  We;re going to have to think up some simpler title, something that anyone can say.  Judys good at that sort of thing."

            " Antediluvian," said Judy.

            Fred twisted round to look at her.  "Thats too long, Judy.  It's longer than those monsters with the tails.  A title needs to be shorter.  But isn't Judy great?  Captain, dont you think shes great?"

            "She is," the captain agreed.  "A remarkable girl."

            "Quite right, Captain," acknowledged the young giant.  "The captain is a great guy.  Only, Anteviludian fauna is kinda dumb.  Thats no kind of title for the papers.  How about Lovers on the Island of Pearls, or something like that?"

            " Tritons shower the radiant Lily with pearls, " shouted Abe.  " Worship from the Empire of Poseidon!  The new Aphrodite! "

            "Thats stupid," protested Fred.  "There never were any tritons.  Thats been scientifically proven.  And there was never any Aphrodite either, were there Judy.  Humans meet with ancient lizards!  The noble captain attacks antediluvian monsters!   It needs to have some pazazz, this title!"

            "Special edition," declared Abe.  " Film star attacked by sea monsters!  Modern womans sex appeal triumphs over primitive lizards!  Primordial reptiles prefer blondes! "

            "Abe," sweetheart Li interrupted.  "I have an idea."

            "What sort of idea?"

            "An idea for a film.  Itll be just fantastic, Abe.  Just imagine, I'd be bathing in the sea ...

            "That blouse really suits you, Li," Abe interjected.

            "What?  And these tritons would fall in love with me and take me away to the bottom of the sea. And I would be their queen."

            "At the bottom of the sea?"

            "That's right, under the water.  In their secret kingdom, see, where they have cities and everything."

            "But sweetheart, at the bottom of the sea you'd drown!"

            "Don't worry about that, I can swim," said his sweetheart innocently.  "So once every day I'd swim up to the shore and breath some air."  Li demonstrated her breathing exercises, which involved raising her chest and moving her arms as if swimming.  "Like that, see?  And on the shore someone, like a young fisherman maybe, would fall in love with me and I'd fall in love with him.  Wouldn't that be great?" said sweetheart Li with a sigh.  "And he would be so handsome and strong, and these tritons would want to drown him, but I would save him and go with him back to where he lives and the tritons would discover us there and then ... and then maybe you could all come along and save us."

            "Li," said Fred seriously, "that is so dumb that I swear they even could make a film of it.  I'll be surprised if old Jesse doesn't make a great film out of it."

           

            Fred was right; Jesse Loeb Pictures did, later on, produce a great film with Miss Lily Valley in the leading role; it also had six hundred nayads, one Neptune and twelve thousand extras dressed as various kinds of underwater lizard.  But before the film was completed a lot of water had flowed away and many incidents took place, such as:

1.  The animal they had captured and kept in Miss Lily's bathtub attracted the lively attention of everyone for two days; by the third day it had stopped moving and Miss Li insisted it was just shy, poor thing; by the third day it had begun to stink and had to be thrown away in an advanced state of decay.

2. Only two pieces of film shot at the lagoon were any use.  On one of them sweetheart Li was crouching in terror, waving her arms desperately at one of the animals standing nearby.  Everyone agreed it was a great shot.  The second showed three men and one girl kneeling down with their noses close to the ground;  all of them were seen from the rear and it looked as if they were bowing down to something.   This piece of film was suppressed.

3.  Almost all the titles suggested for the newspapers were used (even the ones about the antediluvian fauna) in hundreds and hundreds of journals, weeklies and magazines in America and all round the world.  They were accompanied with full and detailed accounts of what had happened and many photographs, such as the one of sweetheart Li among the lizards, the one of a single lizard in the bathtub, the one of Li by herself in her bathing suit, photographs of Miss Judy, Mister Abe Loeb, Baseball Fred, the captain of the yacht, the yacht itself,  the island of Taraiva and a large number of pearls displayed on black velvet.  In this way the career of sweetheart Li was assured; she even refused to appear in music hall and declared to journalists that she would devote herself to her Art.

4.  There were of course those claiming specialist knowledge who asserted, as far as could be judged from the photographs, that these were not primaeval lizards at all but some kind of newt.  Those with even more specialist knowledge asserted that this species of newt was not known to science and therefore did not exist.  There was a long debate in the press about this which came to an end when professor J. W. Hopkins (Yale University) announced that he had examined the photographs available and considered them to be a hoax or a montage; that the species shown seemed to resemble the great covered-gill newt (Cryptobranchus japo­nicus, Sieboldia maxima, Tritomegas Sieboldii or Megalo­batrachus Sieboldii), but done in a way that was inaccurate, inartistic and downright dilletante.  In this way the matter remained scientifically settled for a long period.

5.  After a suitable time had elapsed, Mister Abe Loeb eventually married Miss Judy.  His closest friend, Baseball Fred, was best man in a wedding performed with great celebration and the participation of a wide range of outstanding personalities in politics, art and other fields. 

 

8 – ANDRIAS SCHEUCHZERI

            The inquisitiveness of man is boundless.  It was not enough that Professor J. W. Hopkins (Yale University), the greatest authority of the day in the field of herpatology, had declared these mysterious creatures to be unscientific humbug and mere fantasy; both the specialist and the general press began to report frequent discoveries of these previously unknown animals, resembling giant newts, in all parts of the Pacific Ocean.  Relatively reliable reports came from the Solomon Isles, Schoutoen Island, Kapingamarang, Butarit and Tapeteuea, and then further reports came from entire archipelagoes: Nudufetau, Fanufuti, Nukonono and Fukaofu, and then from Kiau, Uahuka, Uapu and Pukapuka.  Rumours about Captain van Toch's demons and Miss Lily's tritons circulated around Melanesia and Polynesia respectively; and the papers judged there must be various kinds of underwater and prehistoric monsters, especially as the summer had begun and there was nothing else to write about.  The underwater monsters were especially successful among their readers and tritons became the height of fashion in the USA that season; a spectacular revue called Poseidon was performed three hundred times in New York with three hundred of the most beautiful tritonesses and syrens; on the beaches of Miami and California young people bathed in costumes of tritons and nayads (ie. three strings of pearls and nothing else), while in the states of the midwest the Movement for the Suppression of Immorality gained enormously in numbers; there were public demonstrations and several negroes were hanged or burned alive.

            Eventually the National Geographic Magazine published a special edition covering the scientific expeditions of Columbia University (instigated by J.S. Tincker, otherwise known as the Tin-can King).  The reports were endorsed by P. L. Smith, W. Kleinschmidt, Charles Kovar, Louis Forgeron and D. Herrero , which covered all the worlds' authorities in the disciplines of fish parasites, ringworm, botany, infusoria and aphids.  Their extensive coverage included:

 

            ... On the island of Rakahanga the expedition first encountered prints left by the rear legs of a hitherto unknown species of newt.  The prints show five toes, between three and four centimetres long.  The number of prints left shows that the coast around the island must have been swarming with these newts.  There were no prints of front legs (apart from one set of four, clearly left by a juvenile), showing clearly that these newt move about on their rear limbs.

                ...It is worth mentioning that there is neither river nor marshland on the island of Rakahanga; this indicates that these newts live in the sea and are most likely the only representatives of that order living in a pelagic environment.  It is well known, of course, that the Mexican axolotl (Amblystoma mexicanum) lives in salt lakes, but not even the classic work of W. Korngold, Caudate Amphibians (Urodela), Berlin, 1913, makes any mention of newts living in the sea.

                ...We waited until into the afternoon in order that we might catch, or at least catch sight of, a live specimen, but in vain.  With some regret, we left the island of Rakahanga, where D. Herrer had been successful in finding a beautiful new species of lizard heperoptera.  We met with much greater success, however, on the island of Tongarewa.  We waited on the foreshore with our guns in our hands.  Soon after sunset, the head of a newt emerged from the water, relatively large and slightly flattened.  After a short while the newts climbed out onto the sand, swaying as they walked on their hind legs but nonetheless quite agile.  When sitting they were just over three feet in height.  They sat around in a wide circle and began making distinctive and vigorous circling movements of the upper parts of their bodies, giving the impression that they were dancing.  W. Kleinschmidt stood up in order to obtain a better view.  At this, the newts turned to look at him and soon were entirely stiff and motionless; they then began with remarkable speed to approach him, uttering sibilant barking sounds.  When they were about seven paces away we opened fire on them.  They fled, very quickly, and threw themselves into the sea; they were not seen again that evening.  On the shore, there remained no more than two dead newts and one newt with a broken spine, uttering an odd sound, something like ogod, ogod, ogod.  It then expired after W. Kleinschmidt used a knife to open its pulmonary cavity ... (There followed a series of anatomical details which we laymen would be unable to understand; readers with specialist knowledge are referred to the bulletin cited.)

                The above indicators make it clear that this was a typical member of the order of caudate amphibians (urodela) which, as is widely known, includes the salamander genus (salamandridae), comprising the family of spotted salamanders (tritons) and newts (salamandrae), and the family of tadpole spawning newts (ichthyoidea), made up of the pseudo-gilled newts (cryptobranchiata) and the gilled newts (phanerobranchiata).  The newt found on the island of Tongarewa seems to be most closely related to the tadpole spawning pseudo-gilled newts; in many respects, including its size, it is reminiscent of the great Japanese newt (megalobatrachus sieboldii) or the American hellbender, better known as the mud devil, but it does distinguish itself from these species by its well developed sensors and the greater length and strength of its limbs which enable it to move with some facility both in water and on land.  (There followed further details of comparative anatomy).

 

 

 

Andrias Scheuchzeri

 

                After we had prepared the skeletons of the animals killed we made a very interesting observation: the skeleton of these newts is almost identical with the fossil remains of a newt's skeleton found by Dr. Johannes Jakob Scheuchzer in the Öhningen Fault and described by him in his "Homo Diluvii Testis", published in 1726.  Readers less familiar with his work are reminded that the above mentioned Dr. Scheuchzer regarded this fossil as the remains of a human being from before the Flood.  "Members of the educated World," he writes, "will see from the accompanying Woodcut that there is no Doubt whatsoever that we are dealing with a Man who was Witness to the Great Flood; there is no Feature that does not make ample Display of what could only be a Feature of Mankind, for it does everywhere conform with all the individual Parts of the Skeleton of Man in all its Dimensions.  It is a Man made of Stone and shown from the Front; it is a Memorial of Man in a Form now extinct, older than all the Tombs of the Romans, Greeks or even Egyptians or any other People of the East."  At a later date, Cuvier recognised the Öhningen fossil skeleton as that of a newt, known as Cryptobranchus Primaevus or Andrias Scheuchzeri Tschudi and long since considered extinct.  By means of osteological comparisonswe were able to identify this newt as the primitive and supposedly extinct newt, Andrias.  The mysterious ancient reptile, as the newspapers described it, is nothing other than the newt with covered gills known from the fossil record as Andrias Scheuchzeri; or if a new name is needed Cryptobranchus Tinckeri Erectus or the Polynesian Great Newt.

                ...The question as to why this interesting giant newt has hitherto escaped scientific attention remains a mystery, especially considering the large numbers in which it is found on the islands of Rakahanga and Tongarewa in the Manihiki archipelago.  Neither Randolph nor Montgomery make mention of it in their publication Two Years in the Manihiki Islands (1885).  The local inhabitants insist that this animal - which they also consider to be poisonous - began to appear no more than six or eight years ago.  They say that these sea demons are capable of speech (!), and that in the bays where they live they construct entire systems of weirs and sea-walls in a way that resembles underwater cities; that the water in their bays remains as still as a mill pond throughout the entire year; that they excavate dens and passages in the ground under the water which are many meters long and in which they remain during the day; that at night they come out into the fields to steal sweet potatoes and yams and take hoes and pickaxes and other tools from the human population.  The native people have developed a strong aversion to the newts and even live somewhat in fear of them; many of them have preferred to move away to other areas.  It is clear that this is nothing more than primitive legends and superstitions resulting from the revolting appearance and upright stance and gait, somewhat resembling the walk of a human being, of these harmless giant newts.

                ...Travellers tales, according to which these newts are also to be found on other islands than Manihiki, should be taken with extreme caution.  Nonetheless, there is no doubt that the fresh footprints found on the shore of the island of Tongatabu and published by Captain Croisset in La Nature are those of Andrias Scheuchzer.  This finding is of especial importance given that they form a connection between their appearance on the Manihiki Islands with Australasia, where so many vestiges of the development of ancient fauna have been preserved; let us bear in mind in particular the antediluvian lizard hateri or tuatara, which survives to this day on Stephen Island.  These islands are mostly sparsely inhabited and hardly touched by civilization, and it is possible that isolated remains of species elsewhere extinct may have continued to survive there.  Thanks to the efforts of Mister J.S. Tincker, an antediluvian newt has now been added to the ancient lizard, hateri.  If the good Dr. Johannes Jakob Scheuchzer were alive today he would see the resurrection of his Adam of Öhningen ...

 

            This learned bulletin would certainly have been sufficient to satisfy scientific curiosity about the mysterious sea monsters that were being talked about so much.  Unfortunately though, the Dutch researcher, van Hogenhouck, published a report at the same time in which he classified these covered-gilled giant newts in the order of proper newts or tritons under the name of megatriton molucccanus and established that they were distributed throughout the Dutch-Sundanese islands of Jilolo, Morotai and Ceram; there was also a report by the French scientist Dr. Mignard who saw them as typical salamanders and concluded that they had originated in the French islands of Takaroa, Rangiroa and Raroia, calling them simply cryptobranchus salamandroides; there was also a report from H.W. Spence in which he claimed to have recognised a new order of pelagidae, native to the Gilbert Isles, which could be classified under the species name of pelagotriton spencei.  Mr. Spence succeeded in transporting a live specimen to London Zoo, where it became the subject of further research and was given the names pelagobatrachus hookeri, salamandrops maritimus, abranchus giganteus, amphiuma gigas and many others.  Many scientists insisted that pelagotriton spencei was the same as cryptobranchus tinckeri or that Mignards salamander was no other than andrias scheuchzeri; there were many disputes about priority and other purely scientific questions.  So it was that in the end every nation had its own giant newts and furiously and scientifically criticised the newts of other nations.  That is why there never was any scientifically agreed opinion about the whole great matter of the newts.

 

9 – ANDREW SCHEUCHZER

 

            One Thursday afternoon, when London zoo was closed to the public, Mister Thomas Greggs, who was in charge of the lizard pavillion, was cleaning out the tanks and terraria.  He was entirely alone in the newt section where the great Japanese newt, the American hellbender, Andrias Scheuchzeri and a number of small amphibians, axolotls, eels, reptiles and frogs were exhibited.  Mister Greggs went round with his duster and his broom, singing Annie Laurie as he went; when suddenly a rasping voice behind him said:

            "Look Mum."

            Mister Thomas Greggs looked round, but there was nobody there; there was just the hellbender slopping around in its mud and that big black newt, that Andrias, which was leant up against the edge of the tank with its front paws and twisting its body round.  Must have imagined it, thought Mister Greggs, and continued to sweep the floor till it shone.

            "Look, a newt," he heard from behind him.  Mister Greggs turned quickly round; that black newt, that Andrias, was watching him, blinking with its lower eyelids.

            "Ugh, it's ugly, isn't it," the newt said suddenly.  "Dont get too close to it, love."  Mister Greggs opened his mouth in astonishment.

            "What?"

            "You sure it doesnt bite?" the newt rasped.

            "You  ... you can speak!" Mister Greggs stammered, unable to believe his ears.

            "Im scared of that one," the newt exclaimed.  "What does it eat, Mum?"

            "Say Good afternoon," said the astonished Mister Greggs.  The newt twisted its body round.  "Good afternoon," it rasped.  "Good afternoon.  Good afternoon.  Can I give it a cake?"  In some confusion, Mister Greggs reached into his pocket and drew out a piece of bread. 

            "Here you are, then"

            The newt took the lump of bread into its paw and tried a piece of it.  "Look, a newt," it muttered contentedly.  "Dad, why is it so black?"  Suddenly the newt dived back into the water and just its head re-emerged.  "Whys it in the water?  Why?  Ooh, it's not very nice!"

            Mister Thomas Greggs scratched the back of his neck in surprise.  Oh, it's just repeating what it's heard people saying.  "Say Greggs," he tried. 

            "Say Greggs," the newt repeated.

            "Mister Thomas Greggs."

            "Mister Thomas Greggs."

            "Good afternoon."

            "Good afternoon. Good afternoon.  Good afternoon."  The newt seemed able to continue talking without getting tired of it; but by now Greggs did not know what he could say;  Mister Thomas Greggs was not a talkative man. 

            "Shut your mouth for now," he said, "and then when Im ready I'll teach you how to talk."

            "Shut your mouth for now," gurgled the newt.  "Good afternoon.  Look, a newt.  I'll teach you how to talk."

 

            The management of the zoo, however, did not look kindly on it when its zookeepers taught the animals tricks; with the elephant it was different, but the other animals were there for educational purposes and not to be presented like in a circus.  Mister Greggs therefore kept a secret of the time he spent in the newt pavilion, and was there after all the other people had left, and as he was a widower nobody was curious about his being there by himself.  Everyone has his own taste.  And not many people went to the newt pavilion anyway; the crocodiles were popular with everyone but Andrias Scheuchzeri spent his days in relative solitude. 

            One day, when it was getting dark and the pavilions were closing, the director of the zoo, Sir Charles Wiggam, was wandering round the different sections just to see that everything was in order.  As he went past the newt pavilion there was a splash in one of the tanks and a rasping voice said, "Good evening". 

            "Good evening," the director answered, somewhat surprised.  "Whos there?"

            "I beg your pardon," the rasping voice said, "I thought it was Mister Greggs."

            "Whos there?" the director repeated.

            "Andy.  Andrew Scheuchzer."   Sir Charles went closer to the tank.  All he saw was one newt sitting upright and immobile. 

            "Who said that?"

            "Andy," said the newt.  "Who are you?"

            "Wiggam," exclaimed Sir Charles in astonishment.

            "Pleased to meet you," said Andrias politely.  "How do you do?"

            "Damn it all!" Sir Charles roared.  "Greggs!  Hey, Greggs!"  The newt flipped quickly away and hid in the water.  Mister Thomas Greggs hurried in through the door, out of breath and somewhat uneasy.

            "How can I help you, sir?"

            "Greggs, what's the meaning of this?" Sir Charles began.

            "Has something happened, sir?" stammered Mister Greggs, rather unsure of himself.

            "This animal is speaking!"

            "I do beg your pardon, sir," replied Mister Greggs contritely.  "You're not to do that, Andy.  I've told you a thousand times you're not to bother the people with all your talk.  I am sorry, sir, it won't happen again."

            "Is it you that's taught this newt to speak?"

            "Well it was him what started it, sir," Greggs defended himself.

            "I hope it won't happen again, Greggs," said Sir Charles severely.  "I'll be keeping an eye on you."

            Some time after this incident, Sir Charles was sitting with Professor Petrov and talking about so-called animal intelligence, conditioned responses, and about how the popular view will over estimate how much an animal is capable of  understanding.  Professor Petrov expressed his doubts about Elberfeld's horses who, it was said, could not only count but also work out squares and square roots; after all, not even a normal educated man can work out square roots, said the great scientist.  Sir Charles thought of Greggs talking newt.  "I have a newt here," he began hesitantly, "that famous andrias scheuchzer it is, and it has learned to talk like a parrot."

            "Out of the question," said the scientist.  "Newts don't have the right sort of tongue."

            "Then come and have a look," said Sir Charles.  "It's cleaning day today, so there won't be too many people there."  And out they went.

            At the entrance to the newt pavillion sir Charles stopped.  From inside could be heard the scraping of a broom and a monotonous voice saying something very slowly. 

            "Wait," Sir Charles whispered.

            "Is there life of Mars?" the monotonous voice said.  "Shall I read it?"

            "No, read us something else, Andy," another voice answered.

            "Who's to win this years Derby; Pelham Beauty or Gobernador?"

            "Pelham Beauty," the second voice replied. "But read it anyway."

            Sir Charles opened the door very quietly.  Mister Thomas Greggs was sweeping the floor; and in the tank of sea water sat Andrias Scheuchzeri, slowly, word by word in a rasping voice, reading out the evening paper which he held in his front paws.  "Greggs," shouted Sir Charles.  The newt flipped over backwards and disappeared under the water.  Mister Greggs was startled and dropped his broom.

            "Yes sir?"

            "What is the meaning of this?"

            "Please forgive me, sir," stuttered the unfortunate Greggs.  "Andy always reads to me when I'm doing the sweeping.  And then when he's sweeping it's me what reads to him."

            "And who taught him to do that?"

            "He worked it out for himself, sir.  I ... I just gave him my paper so that he wouldn't keep talking all the time.  He was always talking, sir.  So I just thought he could at least learn how to talk proper .. "

            "Andy," called Sir Charles.  A black head emerged from the water.

            "Yes sir," it rasped. 

            "Professor Petrov has come to look at you."

            "Glad to meet you Professor.  I'm Andy Scheuchzer."

            "How do you know your name is Andrias Scheuchzeri?"

            "Well it's written down here, sir.  Andreas Scheuchzer.  Gilbert Islands."

            "And do you often read the newspaper?"

            "Oh yes sir.  Every day."

            "And what parts do you most like to read?"

            "Court cases, horse racing, football,..."

            "Have you ever seen a football match?"

            "No sir."

            "Or a horse race?"

            "No sir."

            "Then why do you read it?"

            "Cause it's in the paper, sir."

            "Do you have no interest in politics?"

            "No sir.  Is there going to be a war?"

            "Nobody can tell you that, Andy."

            "Germanys building a new type of submarine," said Andy anxiously.  "Death rays can turn a whole continent to dust."

            "That's what you've read in the paper, is it?" asked Sir Charles.

            "Yes sir.  Who's going to win this years Derby; Pelham Beauty or Gobernador?"

            "What do you think, Andy?"

            "I think Gobernador, sir; but Mister Greggs thinks Pelham Beauty."  Andy nodded his head.  "Always buy English products.  Snider's braces are the best.  Do you have the new six-cylinder Tancred Junior yet?  Fast, economic and elegant."

            "Thank you, Andy.  That will be enough now."

            "Who's your favourite film star?"  The hair of Professor Petrov's head and moustache bristled.

            "Excuse me, Sir Charles," he complained, "I really have to go now."

            "Very well, lets go.  Andy, would you mind if some very learned gentlemen came to see you?  I think they would be very glad to talk to you."

            "I shall look forward to it, sir," the newt rasped.  "Goodbye Sir Charles.  Goodbye Professor."

            The professor ran from the pavillion snorting and gasping in amazement.  "Forgive me, Sir Charles," he said at last, "but could you not show me an animal that does not read the newspapers?"

 

            The three learned gentlemen turned out to be Sir Bertram, D.M., Professor Ebbigham, Sir Oliver Dodge, Julian Foxley and others.  The following is part of the record of the experiment with Andrias Scheuchzeri.

 

What is your name?

Answer: Andrezu Scheuchzer

How old are you?

A.: I don't know.  If you want to look younger, wear the Libella corset.

What is the date today?

A.: Monday.  It's nice weather today.  Gibraltar is running in the Epsom this Saturday.

What is three times five?

A.: Why?

Are you able to count?

A.: Oh yes.  What is seventeen times twenty-nine?

Leave us to ask the questions, Andrew.  Name some English rivers for us.

A.: The Thames ...

What else?

A.: Thames.

You don't know any others, do you.  Who governs England?

A.: King George.  God bless him.

Very good Andy.  Who is the greatest English writer?

A.: Kipling.

Splendid.  Have you read anything by him?

A.: No.  How do you like Mae West?

It's better if we ask the questions, Andy.  What do you know of English history?

A.: Henry VIII.

And what do you know about him?

A.: The best film in recent years.  Fantastic costumes.  A great show.

Have you seen it?

A.: I haven't.  Get to know England: Buy yourself a Ford Baby.

What would you most like to see, Andy?

A.: The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race.

How many continents are there?

A.: Five.

Very good.  And what are they called.

A.: England, and the other ones.

What are the other ones called?

A.: There are the Bolsheviks and the Germans.  And Italy.

Where are the Gilbert Islands?

A.: In England.  England will not lay a hand on the continent.  England needs ten thousand aeroplanes.  Visit the English south coast.

May we have a look at your tongue, Andy?

A.: Yes sir.  Clean your teeth with Flit toothpaste: it's economic, it's the best and it's English.  For sweet smelling breath, use Flit toothpaste.

Thank you, Andy, that will be enough.  And now, Andy, tell us ...

 

And so on.  The transcript of the conversation with Andrias Scheuchzeri covered sixteen pages and was published in Natural Science.  At the end of the transcript the committee of specialists summarised its findings thus:

 

            1. Andrias Scheuchzeri, a newt kept in London Zoo, is capable of speech, albeit it in a somewhat rasping voice; it has around four hundred words at its disposal; it says only what it has already heard or read.  There is, of course, no question of any independent thought.  Its tongue is quite mobile; under the circumstances we were unable to examine the vocal cords any closer.

            2. The newt is also able to read, although only the evening paper.  It takes an interest in the same subjects as the average Englishman and reacts to them in a similar way, ie. with fixed and generally accepted views.  Its spiritual life - if it is possible to speak of such a thing - remains in conformity with the conceptions and opinions of our times. 

            3. Its intelligence should not be over-estimated, as it in no way surpasses that of the average modern man.

 

Despite this sober assessment by the committee of specialists, the Talking Newt became the sensation of London Zoo.  Andy was the darling of the crowds that surrounded him and wanted to talk to him on every possible subject, starting with the weather and finishing with the economic crisis and the political situation.  At the same time he was given so much chocolate and sweets by his visitors that he became seriously ill in his gastro-intestinal tract.  In the end the newt section had to be closed down, but it was already too late; Andrias Scheuchzeri, known as Andy, died as a result of his popularity, showing that even newts can be corrupted by fame. 

 

10 - TOWN CARNIVAL IN NOVÉ STRAŠACÍ

 

            Mister Povondra, the butler in the Bondy household, was spending this holiday in his native town.  There was to be a carnival the following day; and when Mister Povondra went out he led his eight year old son, Frank, by the hand.  The whole of Nové Strašací was filled with the scent of cakes and pastries and across the street were women and girls coming and going to the bakers with cakes.  Two tents had already been set up on the square selling sweets and cakes and coffee, and a hardware dealer was there with his glass and porcelain, and a woman was shouting that she had embroidery and knitwear of every sort you could think of.  And then there was a hut made of canvas covered in cloth on all sides.  A lightly built man stood there on a ladder fixing on a sign at the top of it.

            Mister Povondra stopped so that he could see what it said.

            The thin man climbed down from his ladder and looked up contentedly at the sign he had just put up.  And Mister Povondra, with some surprise, read:

 

CAPTAIN J. VAN TOCH

and his performing newts

 

            Mister Povondra thought of the big fat man with the captain's cap who he had once shown in to see Mister Bondy.  And now look where he is, the poor man, thought Mister Povondra in sympathy; a captain he was, and now he's travelling about with some pitiful circus act!  Such an impressive and healthy man he was!  Maybe I should go in and see how he is, thought the compassionate Mister Povondra.

            Meanwhile, the thin man had hung up a second sign at the entrance to the tent:

 

!! TALKING LIZARDS !!

!! THE GREATEST SCIENTIFIC SENSATION !!

Entrance 2 koruny.  Children (accompanied by parents) half price!

 

            Mister Povondra hesitated.  Two koruny and another koruna for the lad, that was not cheap.  But Frank liked to learn things, and it would all be part of his education to learn about animals in other parts of the world.  Mister Povondra was willing to sacrifice something for the boy's education, and so he walked up to the thin man.  "Hello," he said, "I'd like to talk to Captain van Toch if that's alright."  The little man's chest expanded in his stripey teeshirt.

            "I'm Captain van Toch, sir."

            "You're Captain van Toch?" answered Mister Povondra in surprise.

            "Yes sir," said the little man, and showed him the anchor tattooed on his forearm."  Mister Povondra blinked in surprise.  How could the captain have shrunk down so small?  Surely that's not possible. 

            "I am personally acquainted with Captain van Toch," he said.  "My name is Povondra."

            "Ah, that's different, then," said the little man.  "But these newts really are Captain van Toch's.  Guaranteed genuine Australian lizards.  Come and have a look inside. Were just starting the main show now," he said as he lifted the sheet at the entrance. 

            "Come along, Frank," said Frank's father, and in they went.  An exceptionally big and fat woman quickly sat down behind a little table.  An odd couple they make, thought Mister Povondra as he paid his three koruny.  Inside the tent there was nothing but a rather unpleasant smell and a tin bath. 

            "Where are the newts?" Mister Povondra asked.

            "In that bathtub," yawned the enormous woman.

            "Now, don't be afraid, Frank," said Mister Povondra, and he stepped up to the bath.  In the water lay something black and immobile, about the size of a fully grown catfish; except that its head seemed to be slightly flat and the skin behind it swollen.

            "That's the prehistoric newt they've been writing about in all the papers," said Mister Povondra to his son didactically, not letting the boy see his disappointment.  (Cheated again, he thought, but id better not let the boy see it.  Three koruny down the drain!)

            "Dad, why's it sitting in a tub of water?" Frank asked.

            "Because that's where newts live, in water."

            "And what do newts eat?"

            "Fish and that sort of thing," suggested Mister Povondra to his son.  (Well they had to eat something, he supposed.)

            "And why's it so ugly?" Frank continued.  Mister Povondra didn't know what to say to that; but at that moment the spindly little man came into the tent.

            "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen," he began in his cackling voice.

            "Don't you have more than just one newt?" Mister Povondra asked accusingly.  (If there were at least two of them we'd be more like getting our moneys worth.)

            "The other one died," said the man.  "This, ladies and gentlemen, is the famous Andrias, the rare and poisonous lizard from the islands of Australasia.  In its native environment it grows to the size of a man and walks on two legs.  Come on then," he said as he turned to the black and listless thing in the bathtub, jabbing at it with a stick.  The black thing stirred itself and, with some effort, raised itself from the water.  Frank recoiled a little but Mister Povondra held his hand tightly, don't be afraid, Daddy's here. 

            The newt stood on its hind legs and supported itself against the side of the tub with its front paws.  The gills on the back of its head twitched spasmodically and it breathed with difficulty through its black snout.  Its skin was too loose and covered in warts and bloody sores, its eyes were round like a frog's and it seemed in pain when it blinked with some kind of membrane from under the eye.

            "As you see, ladies and gentlemen," the man continued in his cracked voice, "this is an animal that lives in water; which is why it is equipped with both gills and with lungs to breathe with when it comes out onto land.  It has five toes, but only four fingers, but can nonetheless hold various items.  Here."  The animal closed its fingers around the mans stick and held it in front of itself like a pitiful sceptre.  "It can also tie knots in a piece of rope," the man declared as he took the stick away and gave the newt a piece of dirty rope.  It held the rope in its hands for a moment and then did indeed tie a knot.  "It can also play on a drum and dance," the man cackled as he gave the animal a children's drum and drumstick.  The animal struck the drum a few times and twisted the upper half of its body round; then it dropped the stick into the water.  "What d'ye do that for, vermin?" the man snarled as he fished the stick out.  "And this animal," he declared, raising his voice back to its showman's level and clapping his hands, "is so intelligent and gifted that it is able to speak like a human being." 

            "Guten Morgen," the animal rasped, painfully blinking with its lower eyelids.  "Good morning."  Mister Povondra was startled, but it seemed to make no great impression on Frank. 

            "What do you say to our honoured public?" the man asked sharply.

            "Welcome to our show," said the newt with a bow as his gills twitched round.  "Willkommen.  Ben venuti."

            "Can you do arithmetic?"

            "I can."

            "How much is six times seven?"

            "Forty-two," croaked the newt with some effort.

            "There, you see Frank?"  Franks father pointed out.  "It can do arithmetic."

            "Ladies and gentlemen," the skinny man crowed, "you are invited to ask questions of your own."

            "Ask him something, Frank," Mister Povondra suggested.  Frank squirmed. 

            "How much is eight times nine?" he finally shouted out; it clearly seemed to him to be one of the hardest questions possible.  The newt thought for a while.

            "Seventy-two."

            "What's the day today?" Mister Povondra asked.

            "Saturday," said the newt. Mister Povondra was very impressed. 

            "Just like a human being.  What's the name of this town?"  The newt opened its mouth and blinked.

            "It's getting a bit tired now," the man interjected.  "Now what do you say to the ladies and gentlemen?"  The newt bowed. 

            "I am honoured.  Thank you very much.  Goodbye.  Au revoir."  And it quickly hid back in the water.

            "That ... that's a very remarkable animal," said Mister Povondra in wonderment; but three koruny was quite a high price to pay, so he added, "What else do you have to show the boy?"  The skinny man was perplexed and pulled on his lower lip.

            "That's all," he said.  "I used to have some monkeys and all," he explained uncertainly, "but they were too much trouble.  I could show you me wife if you like.  The fattest woman in the world, she used to be.  Maruška, come over here!"  Maruška heaved herself onto her feet.

            "What is it?"

            "Let the gentlemen have a look at you."  The fattest woman in the world put her head coquettishly to one side, raised one leg in front of her and lifted her skirt above the knee.  This revealed her red knitted stocking which contained something pale and massive, like a leg of ham.  "The upper part of the leg has a circumference of eighty-four centimetres," the desiccated little man explained, "only there's so much competition these days that Maruška isn't the fattest woman in the world any more."  Mister Povondra pulled his astonished Frank away. 

            "Glad to meet you," a voice rasped from the bathtub.  "Do come again.  Auf wiedersehen."

            "What did you think of that, then, Frank?" Mister Povondra asked, once they were outside.  "Did you learn something?"

            "Yes Dad," said Frank.  "Dad, why was that lady wearing red stockings?"

 

11 - THE ANTHROPOSAURUSES

 

            It would certainly be an overstatement to say that nobody at that time ever spoke or wrote about anything but the talking newts.  People also talked and wrote about other things such as the next war, the economic crisis, football, vitamins and fashion; but there was a lot written about the newts, and much of it was very ill-informed.  This is why the outstanding scientist, Professor Vladimir Uher (University of Brno), wrote an article for the newspaper in which he pointed out that the putative ability of Andrias Scheuchzer to speak, which was really no more than the ability to repeat spoken words like a parrot, was of far less interest from a scientific point of view than some of the other questions surrounding this remarkable amphibian.  For the scientist, the mysteries of Andrias Scheuchzeri were quite different: where, for instance, did it come from; where had it been throughout entire geological periods; how did it remain unknown for so long when reports of it now were coming in from all tropical parts of the Pacific Ocean.  It seems to have been multiplying at an exceptional speed in recent times; how had it acquired such amazing vitality while still in a primitive triassic form, and how had it remained entirely hidden until recently, existing, most likely, in extremely isolated geographic pockets?  Had there been a change of some sort in this ancient newt that brought biological advantages so that this rare vestige from the miocene period was given a new and remarkably effective period of existence?  In this case it would not be out of the question for Andrias not only to multiply but even to evolve into a better form, and that human science would have the unique opportunity to assist in some of the enormous changes to be undergone by at least one animal species.  The ability of Andrias Scheuchzeri to grunt a few dozen words and learn a few phrases - which the lay public perceives as a sign of some kind of intelligence - is no great wonder from a scientific point of view; but the power and vigour with which it shows its ability to survive, bringing it so suddenly and so successfully back to life after spending so long in abeyance, in a retarded state of development and nearly extinct, is no less than miraculous.  There are some unusual circumstances to be considered here: Andrias Scheuchzeri is the only species of newt living in the sea and - even more remarkable - the only newt to be found in the area from Ethiopia to Australasia, the Lemuria of ancient myths.  Could we not almost say that Nature now wishes to add another form of animal to the world by a precipitate acceleration of the development of a single species, a species which she has so far neglected or has so far been unable to bring fully to life?  Moreover: it would be odd if the giant newts of Japan and those of the Alleghan Islands did not have some connecting link in the regions of the ocean lying between them.  If Andrias had not been found it would have been necessary to postulate its existence in the very places where it was found; it would simply be needed to fill the space where, according to the geographic and developmental context, it must have been since ancient times.  Be that as it may, the learned professor's article concluded, this evolutionary resurrection of a miocene newt cannot fail to fill us all with as much reverence as astonishment at the Genius of Evolution on our planet which is clearly still far from ending its creative task.

            This article was published despite the tacit, but definite, view of the editors that a learned article of this sort does not belong in a newspaper.  Soon afterwards, Professor Uher received a letter from one of its readers:

 

Esteemed Professor Uher,

           

            Last year I bought a house on the town square in Čáslav.  While examining the house I found a box in the attic containing some rare and very old papers which were clearly of a scientific nature.  They included two years' issues of Hýbel's journal, Hyllos for the years 1821 and 22, Jan Svatopluk Presl's Mammals, Vojtěch Sedláček Základ's Nature of Physics, nineteen years' issues of the general educational publication, Progress, and thirteen years' issues of the Czech Museum Magazine.  Inserted next to Presls translation of Cuviers Discussion of Upheavals in the Earths Crust (from 1834) I found and article torn out of some old newspaper about some remarkable lizards.

            When I read your distinguished article about these mysterious newts I was reminded of this box and brought it back down.  I think it might be of some interest to you, and I am therefore, as an enthusiastic nature lover and great admirer of your works, sending its contents to you.

 

            With deepest respects,

 

            J. V. Najman

 

            The cutting included with this letter bore neither title nor date; but the style and spelling suggest it came from the third or fourth decade of the nineteenth century; it was accordingly so yellow and decayed that it was very hard to read.  Professor Uher was about to throw it into the bin but he was somehow impressed by the age of this piece of printed paper; he began to read; and after a short time he exclaimed "My God!" and readjusted his glasses.  The cutting bore the following text:

 

Concerning Anthropoid Lizards

 

We read in one of the newspapers published overseas that a certain captain, the commander of an English man of war, having returned from a voyage to distant lands, has brought back reports concerning some rather remarkable lizards which he encountered on a minor island in the Australian ocean.  On this island, we are told, there is to be found a salt water lake which has neither access to the open sea nor any other means of approach not involving great exertions and difficulties.  It was this salt lake that the aforementioned captain and his medical officer had chosen for their recreation when from it emerged some unfamiliar animals.  These animals greatly resembled lizards, their means of locomotion, however, was on two legs similar to human beings.  In size they were comparable with a sea lion or seal, and once on shore they began to move around in their peculiar manner, giving the impression of a charming and elegant dance.  The captain and his medical officer were successful in obtaining one of these animals by means of their guns and inform us that their bodies are of a slimey character, without hair and without anything resembling scales, so that they bear some resemblance to salamanders.  The following day, when they returned to the same spot, they were obliged immediately to depart again because of the overpowering stench, and they instructed their divers to hunt all the newts in the lake with their nets, by which means all but a few of the animals were annihilated, leaving no more than two examples which were taken on board the ship.  Upon establishing that their bodies contained some kind of poison and the skin was burning to the touch in a way that resembled the sting of a nettle, the animals were placed in barrels of salt water in order that they might be returned to england alive.  However, while the ship was near the island of sumatra the captive lizards were successful in making their way from the barrels, opening without any assistance one of the windows of a lower deck, throwing themselves into the sea, and making their escape under cover of darkness.  According to the testimony of officers and ratings on board the ship these animals were remarkably odd and sly, walking as they did on their hind legs, and issuing strange barking and squelching sounds.  They seemed however to present no danger to man.  It would seem appropriate from the preceding to give them the name 'anthroposaurus'. 

 

So the cutting went.  "My God!" repeated the professor in some excitement, "why is there no date or title on this cutting?  And what was this foreign newspaper named by this certain commander and what English ship was this?  What was the small island in the Australian Ocean?  couldn't these people have been a bit more precise and a bit more, well, a bit more scientific?  This is a historic document, it's priceless ..."

            A small island in the Australian Ocean, yes.  A small salt water lake.  It sounds like a coral island, an atoll with a salt lagoon, difficult of access: just the sort of place a prehistoric species of this sort might survive, isolated from the evolutional developments of other species and undisturbed in a natural reservation.  Of course they wouldn't have been able to multiply because of the lack of food in the lake.  It's obvious, the professor said to himself.  An animal similar to a lizard, but without scales and walking on its hind legs like a man: it could only be Andrias Scheuchzeri, or another newt closely related to it. Supposing it was the same Andrias.  Supposing those damned divers in that lagoon wiped them out and just the one pair were taken alive onto that ship; a pair that escaped into the sea by Sumatra.  That would mean right on the Equator, in conditions highly favourable for life and with unlimited food.  Could it be that this change of environment gave this miocene newt a powerful new evolutionary impulse?  It was certainly used to salt water: lets suppose its new home was a calm, enclosed bay with plenty of food; what would happen then?  The newts transposed into an environment with optimal conditions, having enormous vigour; their population would burgeon. That's it, the scientist declared joyfully.  The newts would start to develop uncontrollably; they would throw themselves into life like mad; they would multiply at an amazing rate because their eggs and their tadpoles would have no particular enemies in the new environment.  They would colonise one island after another - it's only strange that some islands have been overlooked.  In all other respects it's typical of migration patterns in pursuit of food - and that raises the question of why they didn't develop earlier.  Could it be to do with the fact that there is no known species of newt in the area between Ethiopia and Australia?  Or rather hasn't been until now.  Could there have been some development in this area in the miocene period which was unfavourable for newts?  It is certainly possible.  Could there have been some particular predator which simply hunted the newts to extinction?  Just on a single small island, with an isolated lake, is where the miocene newt survived - albeit at the price of its evolution coming to a halt.  It was like a compressed spring waiting to be released.  It's not even out of the question that Nature had its own great plans for this newt, it might have developed even further and further, higher and higher, who knows how high ...  (At this thought, Professor Uher shuddered slightly; who knows that Andrias Scheuchzeri was not meant to be the human beings of the miocene!)

            Enough of that!  This undeveloped animal suddenly finds itself in a new environment offering boundless promise;  a compressed spring waiting to be released.  Andrias will have thrown itself into its development with so much miocene vigour and enthusiasm, so much élan vital!  So much frenzy to catch up on the thousands and millions of years during which evolution passed it by!  Is it at all possible it would be content with just the level of development it has reached today?  It would show just the sort of upsurge we have seen - or else it's just on the threshhold of its evolution and getting ready to rise - and who can say where it will go!  These were the thoughts and observation that Professor Vladimír Uher wrote down about this yellowed cutting from an ancient publication, shaking with the intellectual enthusiasm of a discoverer.  I must publish it in the newspapers, he said to himself, as nobody ever reads scientific publications.  Let everyone know what enormous events Nature has in store for us!  I will entitle it Do Newts have a Future? 

            Only, the editor of the Peoples Press looked at Professor Uher's article and shook his head.  Not these newts again!  I think our readers have had it up to their necks with these newts.  It's about time we found something else to write about.  And a scientific article such as this doesn't belong in the papers anyway. 

            As a result, the article about the development and prospects of the newts never did appear.

 

12 – THE SALAMANDER-SYNDICATE

 

            President G.H. Bondy rang the bell and stood up.

            "Gentlemen," he began, "I have the honour of opening this extraordinary general meeting of the Pacific Export Company.  I would like to welcome everyone here and thank them for the contribution they make."

            "I also," he continued with some emotion, "have the sad duty of giving you some tragic news.  Captain Jan van Toch is no longer with us.  Our founder, if I can call him that, the father of the great idea of establishing commercial contact with thousands of islands in the far Pacific, our first captain and enthusiastic fellow worker has died.  He passed away at the start of this year on board our ship, Šárka, not far from Fanning Island after suffering a stroke while engaged in his duty."  (Bet he made a Hell of a fuss, poor man, thought Mister Bondy fleetingly.)  "Let us now all stand up in honour of this mans bright memory."

            All present stood up with a scraping and clattering of chairs and then remained in formal silence, all of them united in the hope that this general meeting wouldn't last too long.  (Poor Vantoch, my friend, thought G.H. Bondy with sincere emotion.  What does he look like now?  I expect they put him on a plank and threw him into the sea - what a splash that must have made!  He was certainly a man of great honour, and had such blue eyes ...)

            "Thank you, gentlemen," he added briefly, "for showing such piety in memory of my personal friend, Captain van Toch.  I now invite our director, Mister Volavka, to inform you of the economic prospects for PEC over the coming year.  None of these figures are yet certain but I hope you won't expect them too have changed too much by the end of the year.  Mister Volavka."

            "Good afternoon," Mister Volavka began, and off he went.  "The state of the pearl market is very unsatisfactory.  Pearl production last year was nearly twelve times higher than in 1925, which itself was a very good year, but now the price of pearls has begun a catastrophic decline, by as much as sixty five percent.  Management has decided, therefore, not to put any of this years pearl harvest on the market and they will be kept in storage until demand has risen again.  Unfortunately, pearls went out of fashion last autumn, clearly because they had sunk so low in price.  Our Amsterdam branch has, at present, more than two hundred thousand pearls in stock which, for the time being, are next to impossible to sell. 

            "At the same time," Mister Volavka purred on, "there has been a marked reduction in the number of pearls found this year.  Many fisheries have had to be abandoned because production was too low.  Fisheries discovered just two or three years ago seem to be more or less exhausted.  It is for this reason that the management had decided to turn its attention to other fruits of the sea such as coral and shellfish.  There has been some success in stimulating the market for coral jewellery and other ornaments, but even here coral from Italy is achieving greater success than that from the Pacific.  The management is also studying the possibility of intensive fishing in the deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean, where the main consideration is how to transport the fish from the Pacific to the European and American markets; results and findings so far are not very encouraging. 

            "On the other hand," the director went on, his voice rising slightly, "our relatively high turnover suggests it might be profitable to diversify into other activities such as the export of textiles, enamel ware, wireless sets and gloves to the Pacific.  islands.  This business would be amenable to further development; although this year it is already showing a slight loss.  there is of course no question of PEC paying any dividend to its shareholders at the end of the year; and the management would like to announce in advance that, on this occasion, it will renounce any commissions and bonuses ..."

            There was a painful silence in the room.  (It must have been like this on Fanning Island, thought G.H. Bondy.  He died a true sailor, Vantoch.  A good man.  It's a pity a decent chap like that had to die.  And he wasn't even that old ... he was no older than I am .. )  Dr. Hubka stood up to speak; and the minutes of the extraordinary general meeting of the Pacific Export Company continued thus:

 

Dr. Hubka asks whether the PEC might go into liquidation

 

G.H. Bondy replies that management has decided to wait for further suggestions in that matter.

 

Monsieur Louis Bonenfant urges that pearl production should have been done under the supervision of permanent representatives, continuously on site at fisheries, who would check whether pearls were being gathered with enough vigour and specialist skill.

 

Mr. Volavka, director, observes that this has been considered, but it was thought that this would result in excessive administration costs.  There would need to be at least three hundred agents on the payroll; there was also the question of how these agents would themselves be supervised to ensure that all pearls found were passed on to the company.

 

M.H. Brinkelaer asks whether the newts can be relied on to pass on all the pearls found by them, and whether they do not dispose of them to somebody not connected with the company.

 

G.H. Bondy observes that this is the first time the newts have been mentioned in public.  It has been a rule in this place, up till now, not to mention any details of how the gathering of pearls is carried out.  He points out that it was for this reason that the inconspicuous title of Pacific Export Company chosen.

 

M.H. Brinkelaer asks whether it is unacceptable, in this place, to talk about matters which affect the interests of the company, and which moreover have long been known by the general public.

 

G.H. Bondy replies that it is not unacceptable, but it is unprecedented.  He welcomes that fact that it is now possible to speak openly.  In reply to Mister Brinkelaer's first question, he can state that as far as he knows there is no reason to doubt the total honesty of the newts and their willingness to work at gathering pearls and corals.  We must however reckon on known pearl fisheries becoming effectively exhausted in the near future.  Where new fisheries are concerned, it was on a journey to find islands which are so far unexploited that our unforgettable colleague, Captain van Toch, died.  It has so far been found impossible to find another man with the same experience and the same unshakeable honesty and love for his work to replace him. 

 

Colonel D.W. Bright fully acknowledges the services rendered by the late Captain van Toch.  He points out, however, that the captain, whose loss we all regret, did show too much concern for the comfort of the aforementioned newts. (Agreement)  It was not necessary, for instance, to provide the news with knives and other equipment of such high quality as the late van Toch did.  There was no need, for instance, to give them so much food.  There is scope for substantial reductions in the costs associated with the maintenance of the newts and in this way raise the net income of the company.  (Lively applause)

 

Vice-president J. Gilbert agrees with Colonel Bright, but points out that that was not possible while Captain van Toch was still alive.  Captain van Toch insisted that he had his personal obligations towards the newts.  There were various reasons why it would have been inadvisable to even suggest neglecting the old mans wishes in this respect. 

 

Kurt von Frisch asks whether the newts could not be employed in some other way that might be more profitable than pearl fishing.  Their natural, one could say beaver-like, talent for building weirs and other underwater constructions should be taken into account.  They could perhaps be put to use in deepening harbours, building piers and performing other technical tasks underwater.

 

G.H. Bondy states that management is actively engaged in this consideration; there are some great possibilities in this respect.  He states that the company now owns nearly six million newts; if we consider that one pair of newts might have a hundred tadpoles in any given year the company could well have three hundred million newts at its disposal by this time next year; in ten years the number would be astronomical.  G.H. Bondy asks what the company intends to do with this enormous number of newts, when the newt farms are already over-populated and, because of a lack of natural foodstuffs, it has been found necessary to feed the newts with copra, potatoes, maize and similar.

 

K. von Frisch asks whether the newts are edible. 

 

J. Gilbert: not at all.  Nor do their hides have any use. 

 

M. Bonenfant asks management what they now intend to do.

 

G.H. Bondy (standing): "Gentlemen, we convened this extraordinary general meeting in order publicly to draw your attention to the extremely unfavourable prospects of our company which - I hope you will allow me to remind you of this - has proudly paid returns of twenty to twenty-three percent over recent years as well as having well funded reserves and low costs.  We stand now at a turning point; the way of doing business which has proved itself so well over recent years is now practically at an end; we have no choice but to find new ways." (Loud applause)

 

"I could even say it is a sign from fate that our excellent friend and captain,  J. van Toch,  left us just at this time.  Our romantic, beautiful - I could even say absurd - trading in pearls was always closely connected with him.  I consider this to be the closing chapter in our business; it had its, so to speak, exotic charm, but it was never suitable for modern times.  Gentlemen, pearls could never be the concern of a large company which needs to be cohesive horizontally and vertically.  For me personally, this affair with pearls was never more than a minor distraction." (Discomfiture)  "Yes gentlemen; but a minor distraction which brought substantial profits to me and to you.  At the start of our business these newts also had a kind of, shall I say, charm of the new.  Three hundred million  newts will not have much charm about them." (Laughter)

 

"I spoke earlier about finding new ways of moving forward.  While my good friend, Captain van Toch, was still alive there was no question of giving our affairs any other character than that which could be called the Captain van Toch style."  (Why not?)  "Because, gentlemen, I have too much good taste to mix one style with another.  I would say that the style of Captain van Toch was that of a romantic adventurer.  It was the style of Jack London, Joseph Conrad and others of that ilk.  Old-fashioned, exotic, colonial, almost heroic.  I do not deny that he charmed me with this style of his, but since his death we no longer have the right to continue with an epic tale which is adventurous and juvenile.  We have before us not a new chapter but a new conception, gentlemen, it is a job for an imagination which is new and fundamentally different."  (You speak as if this were all just a story in a novel!)  "Yes, gentlemen, you are quite right.  I take an artists interest in business.  Without a sense of art it is impossible ever to think of something new.  We need to be poets if we are to keep the world moving."  (Applause)

 

G.H. Bondy bows.  "Gentlemen, I am sorry to be closing this chapter, the chapter we might call the van Toch era; an era in which we made use of the child-like and adventurous side that we all have.  The time has come now to bring this fairy story of pearls and coral fisheries to an end.  Sinbad is dead, gentlemen.  And the question is, what now?"  (Well that's just what were asking!)  "Alright gentlemen: please take out pen and paper and write this down.  Six million.  Have you got that down?  Multiply that by fifty.  That makes three hundred million, doesn't it.  Multiply that by another fifty.  Now that's fifteen thousand million, yes?  And now gentlemen, please be so kind as to tell me what, in three years time, were going to do with fifteen thousand million newts.  How are we to employ them, how are we going to feed them, and so on." (Let them die, then!)  "Yes, but don't you think that would be a pity?  Have you not thought that every new newt is a new business opportunity, a new unit of labour waiting to be put to use?  Gentlemen, with six million newts we can still make business of some sort.  With three hundred million it will be somewhat harder.  But gentlemen, fifteen thousand million newts is something quite inconceivable.  The newts will devour the company.  That is how it is."  (And you will be responsible!  It was you who started all this business with the newts!)

 

G.H. Bondy raises his head.  "And I fully accept that responsibility, gentlemen.  Anyone who wishes to can dispose of his shares in the Pacific Export Company immediately.  I am quite willing to pay for them... "  (How much?)  "Their full value."  (Consternation.   Chairman calls for ten minute pause)

 

After pause, H. Brinkelaer speaks.  Expresses pleasure at high rate of increase of newts, and with it the rate of increase of company assets.  But, gentlemen, it would of course be sheer madness to breed them without regard for the need; suggests on behalf of shareholders that if the company cannot find suitable work for them itself they should be simply sold as working force to whoever wishes to undertake any work on or under water.  (Applause)  The cost of feeding a newt is no more than a few centimes; if a pair of newts is sold for, say, a hundred francs, and the working life of a newt is no more than, say, one year, then any investor would see a very good return.  (Signs of agreement)

 

J. Gilbert indicates that newts reach ages much higher than one year; we do not yet have enough experience with them to say how long they actually live.

 

H. Brinkelaer modifies his suggestion; the price of a pair of newts should be set at three hundred francs.

 

S. Weissberger asks what sort of work the newts are actually capable of.

 

Mr. Volavka, director: with their natural instincts and their exceptional technical training, the newts would be especially suited to the construction of weirs, embankments and breakwaters, to the deepening of harbours and channels, clearing shallow waters and removal of sediments, and to freeing water channels; they could reinforce and maintain shorelines, extend sea defences, and so on.  For work of this sort they would operate in groups of hundreds or thousands of individuals; in projects on this large a scale, where not even modern plant and machinery could be considered, there would be no other way of performing the task at such low cost.  (Quite right!  Excellent!)

 

Dr. Hubka objects that by selling newts that might find new places to reproduce the company might lose its monopoly on the animals.  He suggests the newts be merely rented out to businesses engaged in water works as properly trained and qualified working units with the stipulation that any tadpoles created will continue to be the property of PEC. 

 

Mr. Volavka, director, points out that it would not be possible to supervise millions or even thousands of millions of newts in the water, let alone their tadpoles; many newts have already been misappropriated for zoos and menageries. 

 

Col. D.W. Bright: Only male newts should be sold or rented out so that they would not be able to reproduce outside the farms and incubators belonging to the company.

 

Mr. Volavka, director: It is not possible to assert that newt farms are the property of the company.  A piece of the sea floor cannot be owned or rented.  The question of who the newts belong to, if for instance they are living in the surface waters of Her Majesty the Queen of Holland, is very unclear, legally speaking, and could lead to many disputes.  (Unease.)  In most cases we don't even have any guaranteed fishing rights; in fact, gentlemen, we established our newt farms in the Pacific islands without any legal right to do so.  (Growing unease.)

 

J. Gilbert, responding to Colonel Bright, says that experience so far showed that male newts kept in isolation become lethargic and unwilling to work; they are lazy, apathetic and often die from stress.

 

Von Frisch asks whether newts to be sold could not be castrated or sterilised beforehand.

 

J. Gilbert: That would incur too many costs; there simply is no way for us to prevent newts from procreating after they have been sold.

 

S. Weissberger, asks, as a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, that if any newts are to be sold it should be done humanely and in a way that would not offend people's sensibilities.

 

J. Gilbert thanks him for raising the subject; it is understood that the newts would be caught and transported only by trained personnel under proper supervision.  It is not, of course, possible to be sure how the newts will be treated by the businesses that buy them.

 

S. Weissberger declares that he is satisfied with the assurances given by Vice-President Gilbert.  (Applause.)

 

G.H. Bondy: "Gentlemen, we have,  from now on, to abandon any idea of having a monopoly on newts.  Unfortunately, under current regulations, we are not able to take out a patent on them." (Laughter.)  "We can and must do business with newts in a way that's fundamentally different from the way we have been up till now; and it is essential that our approach to business is fundamentally different and on a far bigger scale."  (Hear hear!)  "And there are many things, gentlemen, that need to be agreed beforehand.  Management suggest the creation of a new, vertically organised trust under the name Salamander Syndicate.  Besides our company, the members of the newt syndicate would consist of certain major companies and strong financial groups; there is one company, for instance, that would be engaged in manufacturing special, patented metal tools for the newts ... " (MEAS, you mean?)   "Yes, that's right, MEAS is the company I have in mind.  There will also be a cartel of companies in the field of chemicals and foodstuffs, manufacturing cheap, patented feed for the newts; there will be a group of transport companies, making use of experience already gained to patent special hygienic tanks for transporting the newts; a block of insurance companies to cover the newts against risk of death or injury during transportation or at the workplace; other interested concerns in the fields of industry, export and finance which, for legal reasons, we are not able to mention by name at this stage.  Suffice it to say, gentlemen, that at the start of business the syndicate would have four hundred millions pounds sterling at its disposal."  (Excitement)  "This file, my friends, is already full of contracts and all they need now is a signature for the creation of one of the biggest commercial organisations of modern times.  All that is asked of you by the management, gentlemen is that you give them the authority to establish this gigantic concern whose task will be to cultivate and employ the newts in the best possible way." (Applause and voices of protest).

"Gentlemen, please bear in mind the advantages a collaboration of this sort could bring.  The Newt Syndicate would provide more than just newts, it would also provide equipment and food for the newts such as maize, carbohydrates, beef fat and sugar for thousands of millions of well fed animals; then there would be transport, insurance, veterinary needs and everything at the lowest rate guaranteed for us if not by  a monopoly then at least by being in a dominant position over any other potential rival that might want to deal in newts.  Just let them try it, gentlemen; they won't be in competition with us for long."  (Bravo!)  "But that's not all.  The Newt syndicate would provide all kinds of building material for underwater work performed by the newts; for this reason we have the support also of heavy industry, cement works, the stone and timber industries .."  (You still don't know how the newts are going to work!)  "Gentlemen, at this very moment there are twelve thousand newts at work in Saigon building new docks, basins and jetties."  (You didn't tell us about that!)  "No.  This is our first large scale experiment, and it has been a complete success, meeting all our hopes and expectations.  Without any hint of a doubt, the future belongs to newts."  (Enthusiastic applause)

"And that's not all, gentlemen.  There are still many more functions for the Newt Syndicate to perform.  the salamander syndicate will seek out work for millions of newts all round the world.  They will provide the plans and the ideas for subjugating the oceans.  It will disseminate ideas of Utopia, dreams that are gigantic, projects for new coastlines and shipping lanes, causeways that will join continents, whole chains of artificial islands for journeys to new lands in the middle of the oceans.  That is where the future of mankind lies.  Gentlemen, four fifths of the Earths surface is covered by sea; there's no denying that that is too much; the surface of our world, the map of sea and land, must be corrected.  We are giving the world the workers of the sea, gentlemen.  Well no longer be doing it in the style of Captain van Toch with his adventurous tales of pearls and treasure but by the tried and tested means of honest toil.  We can be mere shopkeepers or we can be more creative; but if we fail to think in terms of oceans and continents we won't have fulfilled out promise.  Somebody earlier on mentioned the difficulty of selling a pair of newts.  I would rather we thought in terms of thousands of millions of newts, of millions and millions of workers, of moving the crust of the Earth itself, a new Genesis and a new geological age.  We have today the chance to talk of a new Atlantis, of ancient continents extending further and further out into the seas, a new world created by man himself.  Forgive me, gentlemen, if all this seems Utopian, but we are indeed stepping out into a Utopia.  We have already entered in, my friends.  All we need to do is work out what technical jobs need to be done by the newts ... " (And the economics!)

"Yes.  The economics of all this are especially important.  Gentlemen, our company is too small to be able to make use of thousands of millions of newts by itself; we don't have the money for it nor the influence.  If the map of the seas and the land is to be changed we need also to have the greatest powers in the world taking an interest.  But that can be left till later; there is still no need to name what high places have already shown positive interest in the syndicate.  But for now, all I ask of you, gentlemen, is that you do not lose sight of the boundless scope of the affair you are about to vote on."  (Enthusiastic and sustained applause.  Excellent! Bravo!)

 

            It was nonetheless necessary, before the vote was held, to promise that shares of the Pacific Export Company would pay a dividend of at least ten percent this year from its reserves.  The vote was then eighty-seven percent in favour of the Newt Syndicate and only thirteen percent against.  As a result the management's proposal was accepted.  The Salamander Syndicate came into life.  G.H. Bondy was congratulated.

            "That was a very good speech, Mister Bondy," old Sigi Weissberger praised.  ""Very good.  And please, tell me, how did you get the idea?"

            "How?" G.H. Bondy replied absent mindedly.  "Actually, to tell you the truth Mister Weissberger, it was all because of old van Toch.  He was always so fond of his newts - what would the poor man have said if we just let those tapa-boys of his die out or be killed?"

            "Tapa-boys?  What do you mean, tapa-boys?"

            "All those vile newts.  At least they'll be treated decently now that they're worth money.  And we might as well use them to create a utopia as the horrors are no good for anything else."

            "I don't see what you mean," Mr. Weissberger said.  "Have you ever actually seen one of the newts, Mr. Bondy?  I don't really know what they're like.  What do they look like?"

            "I'm afraid I really can't tell you, Mr. Weissberger.  How should I know what a newt looks like?  Do you think I have the time to bother about what they look like?  I'm just glad we've got the Newt Syndicate sorted out."

 

(Supplementary Chapter) - The sex life of the newts. 

                One of mans favourite activities is to imagine how the world might be in the distant future, what technical wonders will have been perfected, what social problems solved, how far science and civil organisation will have progressed, and so on.  But however much improved, progressed or at least more technically perfect these utopias are, they never fail to take a lively interest in the question of how one of the most ancient of institutions might be.  Sex, reproduction, love, marriage, family, the status of women and so on are as popular now as they have always been.  Consider, in this respect, the works of Paul Adam, HG. Wells, Aldous Huxley and many others.

                Taking his example from these authors, and considering that he has already begun to speculate of the future of our planet,  the present author regards it as his duty to speculate on what the sexual behaviour of the newts will be.  He will settle the matter now so that he will not have to return to it later.  In its basic outlines, the sex life of Andrias Scheuchzeri is, of course, no different from that of other tailed amphibians; there is no copulation in the proper sense of the word, the female carries the ova through several stages of their development, the fertilised ova develop into tadpoles in the water and so on; this is something that can be found in any primer of biology.  So let us refer then to just a few peculiarities which have been observed in Andrias Scheuchzeri.

                According to the account given by H. Bolte, the male and female come together in early April; the male will usually remain with just one female throughout any one mating season, and for a period of several days will never leave her side.  He will take no sustenance during this period, whereas the female will evince a voracious appetite.  The male will pursue the female in the water and attempt to keep his head closely beside hers.  If he is successful in this, then he will position his paw in front of her snout in order to prevent escape.  He will then become stiff.  In this way, with male and female in contact only at the head while their bodies form an angle of approximately thirty degrees, the two animals will float motionless side by side in the water.  After a short time has elapsed, the male will begin to convulse with sufficient vigour for their two bodies to collide; after which he will again become stiff, his limbs extended to each side, and touching only the head of his chosen mate with his paw.  During this, the female shows a total indifference apart from eating whatever comes within range.  This, if we may call it thus, kissing lasts several days; at times the female will pull herself away in pursuit of food, at which the male will pursue in a state of clear agitation if not fury.  Eventually the female ceases to show further resistance or attempt to remove herself from the male and the couple will remain floating motionless, resembling a pair of black logs attached to each other in the water.  The body of the male will then begin to undergo cramps and convulsions, during which he will discharge large amounts of somewhat sticky foam into the water, immediately after which he will abandon the female and climb away between the rocks and stones in a state of extreme exhaustion; during this period it is possible for the observer to cut off a leg or tail without his showing any kind of defensive reaction.

                The female will remain for some time in her stiff and motionless posture; she will then show vigorous movement and discharge from her cloaca a chain of eggs inside a gelatinous covering, making frequent use of her rear limbs to assist this process in the way seen among toads.  The eggs number between forty and fifty and hang from the female's body.  She will swim with them to a safe place and attach them to seaweed, algae or simply to a rock.  After a period of ten days, the female will bear another litter of twenty to thirty eggs without any union with the male having taken place; it seems clear that the eggs were fertilised within the cloaca.  There will usually be a third and a fourth discharge of eggs after a period of seven or eight days, each of fifteen to twenty eggs variously fertilised.  The feather-gilled tadpoles will emerge after a gestation period of between one and three weeks.  The tadpoles grow into adult newts after just one year and are able to reproduce in their turn. 

                The behaviour observed by Miss Blanche Kistemaeckers of two newts in captivity was somewhat different.  At the time of spawning the male approached only one female and pursued her quite brutally; when she escaped from him he beat her with heavy blows of his tail.  He disapproved when she tried to take food and drove her away from it; it was clear he wanted to have her just for himself and simply terrorised her.   Once he had discharged his milt he threw himself on another female and tried to eat her, so that he had to be taken from the tank and placed somewhere else.  This second female nonetheless produced fertile eggs, numbering sixty-three in total.  Miss Kistemaeckers noticed that the cloaca of all three animals was very sore, and she writes that fertilisation of the ova of Andrias Scheuchzeri seems to take place not by copulation, nor even spawning, but by what she called the sexual milieu.  It is already evident that the two sexes need not come together at an appropriate time for fertilisation of the eggs to take place.   This led the young researcher to carry out further experiments.  She separated the two sexes; at the appropriate time she extracted the sperm from the male and put it into the water where the females were, at which the females began to discharge fertilised eggs.  In another experiment Miss Kistemaeckers filtered the semen to remove the sperm; this gave a clear, slightly acidic liquid which she put into the females water; the females then began to discharge eggs, about fifty at a time, of which most were fertile and produced normal tadpoles.   This is what led Miss Kistemaeckers to the important notion of the sexual milieu, which can be seen as a process in its own right, existing between parthenogenesis and sexual reproduction.  The eggs are fertilised simply by a change in the chemical environment (a certain level of acidity, which has not so far been successfully created artificially), which is somehow connected with the sexual functions of the male although these functions themselves are not essential; the fact that the male does conjoin with the female is clearly no more than a vestige of an earlier stage of evolution when Andrias reproduced in the same way as other newts.  Miss Kistemaeckers rightly observes that this form of mating is peculiar, some kind of inherited illusion of paternity; the male is not the real father of the tadpoles but only an impersonal provider of the chemical environment which is what really fertilises the ova.  If we had a hundred newt couples together in a tank it would be tempting to think that a hundred individual acts of mating would take place; but in fact there will be just the one, a collective a sexualisation of the given environment or, to put it more precisely, the acidification of the water to which the mature eggs of the species will respond by developing into tadpoles.  If this unknown acidification agent can be created artificially there will be no more need of males.  So the sex life of this remarkable species is actually no more than an illusion; the erotic passion, the pair-bonding and sexual tyranny, fidelity for the time needed, the slow and cumbersome act of intercourse, all these things are actually unnecessary and no more than an outdated and almost symbolic act which, so to speak, decorates the impersonal creation by the male of the procreative environment.  The strange indifference shown by the female to the frantic and pointless activity of the male is clear evidence that she instinctively feels that it is nothing more than a formal ceremony or a prelude to the real love-making when they conjoin with the fertilising medium; it could almost be said that the female of Andrias Scheuchzeri understands this state of affairs clearly and goes through it objectively without any erotic illusions.

                (The experiments performed by Miss Kistemaeckers was followed up with some interesting research by the learned Abbé Bontempelli.  Having prepared some dried and powdered milt from Andrias he put it in the female's water, who then began to discharge fertile eggs.  He obtained the same result if he dried and powdered Andrias's male organ or if he took an extract in alcohol or by infusion and poured it into the female's water.  He tried the same experiment, with the same result, when he took an extract of the male's pituitary gland and even when he took a scraping from the males skin, if taken in the rutting season.  In all these cases, the females did not respond at first, but after a while they stopped seeking food and became stiff and motionless in the water, then after some hours they began to discharge eggs in a gelatinous coating, each about the size of pig's droppings.)

                While discussing this matter, it will be necessary to describe the strange ceremony which became known as the dance of the salamanders.  (This does not refer to the Salamander Dance which came into fashion around this time, especially in high society, and which Bishop Hiram declared to be the most depraved dance he had ever heard described.)  The dance took place on evenings when there was a full moon (apart from in the breeding season).  The males, and only the males, of Andrias would appear on the beach, form themselves into a circle and begin a strange, wave-like twisting and bending of the upper half of the body.   This movement was typical of these giant newts at all times, but during these dances it develops into a wild passion, something like the dances of dervishes.  Some researchers regard this frenzied twisting and stamping as a kind of cult of the moon, which would mean it is a kind of religious ceremony; on the other hand some researchers see the dance as essentially erotic in character and seek to explain it primarily in terms of the peculiar sexual procedures described above.  We have already said that the female of Andrias Scheuchzeri is fertilised by the so-called sexual milieu surrounding males and females rather than by the personal conjoining of individual males and females.  It was also said that the females accept this impersonal sexual relationship far more realistically and routinely than the males who, clearly for reasons of instinctive vanity and greed, try to maintain at least the illusion of sexual triumph, leading them to play a role that involves betrothal and a husband's authority.  This is one of the greatest erotic illusions to be found, and it is interesting that the illusion is corrected by these grand male ceremonies which seem to be nothing less than an instinctive attempt to reinforce their sense of belonging to a Male Collective.  It is thought that this collective dance has the function of overcoming that atavistic and nonsensical illusion of the males sexual individuality; this whirling, inebriating, frenetic gang is nothing other than the Collective Male, the Collective Bridegroom and the Great Copulator that carries out its celebratory wedding dance and abandons itself to the great nuptial rite - and all the time the females are strangely excluded and left to squelch lethargically over the fish or mollusc they have eaten.  The famous Charles J. Powell, who gave this newt ritual the name, Dance of the Male Principle, writes: "And in this ritual of male togetherness, do we not see the root and origin of the remarkable collectivism shown by the newts?  Let us be aware that true animal society is only to be found where life and development of the species are not built on sexual pair-bonding, such as we see among bees and ants and termites.  The society of the bee-hive can be described thus: I, the Mother Hive.  In the case of the newts, their society must be described quite differently: We, the Male Principle.  It is only when the males mass together at the right time and virtually perspire the fertilising sexual milieu that they become the Great Male which enters the womb of the female and generously multiplies life.  Their paternity is collective; and for this reason their entire nature is collective and expresses itself in collective activity, whereas the females, once they have laid their eggs, lead a life that remains dispersed and solitary until the following spring.  It is the males alone that create the community, the males alone that carry out collective tasks.  There is no other species of animal wherein the female plays such a subordinate role as Andrias; they are excluded from communal activities and show not the slightest interest in them.  Their moment comes only when the Male Principle imbues their environment with a chemical acidity that is barely perceptible, but which has such power of penetration, such élan vital, that it is effective even when the currents and tides of the oceans have diluted it to almost nothing.  It is as if the Ocean itself were the male, fertilising millions of embryos on its shores.

                "However vainly the cock might crow," Charles J. Powell continued, "it is to the female that in, most species, nature has given the dominant role in life.  The male is there for his own passion and to kill; he is pompous and arrogant, while the female represents the species in all its strength and lasting nobility.  In the case of Andrias (and often in the case of man) the relationship is fundamentally different; by the creation of a masculine society and solidarity the male acquires clear biological dominance and determines how the species will develop to a far greater extent than the female.  It may well be because of this marked male input to the direction of development that Andrias has so excelled in technical matters, which are talents typical of the male.  Andrias is by nature a technologist and tends towards group activities; these secondary features of the male, by which I mean a talent for technology and a flair for organisation, has, before our very eyes, developed with such speed and such success that we would be compelled to speak of a miracle were we not aware of what a powerful force in life sexual determination is.  Andrias Scheuchzeri is animal faber, and it is even possible that he will one day surpass man himself given enough time.  All this is the result of one fact of nature; that they have created a society that is purely male."