THE WAR WITH THE NEWTS

Karel Čapek

 

 

BOOK THREE

THE WAR WITH THE NEWTS  

1 - MASSACRE ON THE COCONUT ISLES

            In one thing, Mr. Povondra was mistaken: the shots exchanged at Kankesanturai were not the first conflict between people and newts.  The first known skirmish had taken place some years before on the Coconut Isles in the golden age of pirate raids on the salamanders; but even that was not the oldest incident of this sort and in the ports of the Pacific Ocean there was much talk about certain regrettable cases when newts had offered any kind of resistance, sometimes even to the normal S-Trade; although petty incidents such as these are not written about in the history books. 

            On the Coconut Isles, or Keeling Isles, this is what happened: The Montrose, a raiding ship operated by Harriman's Pacific Trade Company and under the captaincy of James Lindley, sailed in for one of its usual newt gathering expeditions of the sort known as a Macaroni Run.  The Coconut Isles were well known for a bay with a large newt population settled there by Captain van Toch himself but which, because of its remoteness, was left, as they say, to its own devices.  No-one could accuse Captain Lindley of any lack of care and attention, not even in that the men who went on shore were not armed.  (At that time the trade in hunting newts had already taken on a standard form; it is true, of course, that the pirate ships had earlier used to equip themselves with machine guns and even light cannons, although they were not intended for use against the newts but against unfair competition from other pirates.  One day however, off the island of Karakelong, one of Harrimans steamers came up against a Danish ship whose captain considered the hunting grounds of Karakelong as his territory; so the two sides settled some old accounts to do with their prestige and some trading disputes by leaving the newts alone and starting to fire at each other with their rifles and Hotchkiss guns; on land, victory went to the Danes after their successful knife attack but the Harriman ship then had its success by firing its cannons at the Danish ship and sinking it with all hands, including Captain Nielsen.  This became known as the Karakelong Incident.  So then governments and officials of the relevant countries had to become involved; pirate ships were from then on forbidden to use cannons, machine guns or hand grenades; the companies involved also allocated what they called the free hunting ground among themselves so that any one newt settlement would only ever be visited by a certain raiding ship; this gentleman's agreement among the great pirates was adhered to and respected even by the smallest raiding businesses.)  But to return to Captain Lindley, he conducted himself entirely in accordance with commercial and marine practices of the time when he sent his men out to gather newts armed only with sticks and oars, and the later official enquiry gave the dead captain full satisfaction in that respect. 

            The men who went down to the Coconut Isles that moonlit night were under the command of Lieutenant Eddie McCarth, who was already experienced in this sort of newt-gathering expedition.  It is true that the herd of newts they found on the shore was exceptionally large, estimated at between six and seven hundred strong and fully grown males, whereas Lieutenant McCarth had only sixteen men at his command; but it cannot be said that he failed to do his duty, partly because the officers and ratings on the pirate ships were paid, it was said, according to how many newts they captured.  In the ensuing enquiry by the marine authorities it was found that "although Lieutenant McCarth is responsible for this unhappy incident it is quite clear that no-one else would have acted differently under the circumstances".  The unfortunate young officer had, in fact, shown remarkable prudence in that instead of slowly surrounding the newts, which, given their numbers, could not have been fully achieved, he ordered a sudden attack with the intention of cutting the newts off from the sea, forcing them inland and stunning them one by one with a blow to the head with a club or an oar.  Unfortunately, when the attack took place the sailors were separated from each other and nearly two hundred salamanders escaped into the water.  While the attacking men were processing those newts which had been prevented from reaching the sea they began to hear shots behind themselves from shark guns; no-one had any idea that these wild and natural newts on the Keeling Isles were equipped with weapons against sharks and no-one ever found out who had given them to them. 

            One of the deck hands, Michael Kelly, who had survived the whole catastrophe, said: "When we heard the first shots we thought it must be some other ship that had come to hunt for newts like we had.  Lieutenant McCarth turned round quick and shouted, 'What are you doing, you fools, this is the crew of the Montrose here!'  Then he was hit in the side, but he still pulled out his revolver and started shooting.  Then he got a second shot in the neck and he fell.  Then we saw for the first time that it was the newts firing at us and trying to cut us off from the sea.  Then Long Steve raised his oar and rushed out at the newts shouting Montrose! Montrose! so we all started shouting Montrose! and thumping at these horrors with oars or whatever we could.  There was about five of us left lying there, but the rest of us fought our way down to the water.  Long Steve jumped in and waded out to the boat; but when he got there some of the newts grabbed hold of him and pulled him down under the water.  They drowned Charlie and all; he shouted to us Lads, Jesus Christ lads, don't let them get me, but there was nothing we could do.  Those vermin were shooting us in the back; Bodkin turned round and he got it in the belly, all he said was Oh no! and he fell.  So we all tried to get back inland to the interior of the island; wed already broken all our oars and sticks on these monsters, so all we did was run like rabbits.  By then, there was only the four of us left.  We didn't dare go any further away from the shore in case we couldn't get back on board ship; we hid behind some stones and bushes and had to look on while the newts finished off our mates.  Drowned them in the water like kittens, they did, and if anyone still tried to swim they gave him one on the head with a crowbar.  It was only then I saw I had a twisted ankle and couldn't run any further."

            Captain James Lindley, who had remained on board the Montrose, must have heard the gunfire from the island; whether he thought there was some trouble with the natives or that there were some other newt traders there, he simply took the cook and two of the stokers who had stayed on board, had the machine gun (which was clearly hidden on the ship despite being strictly forbidden) put on the remaining boat, and went out to help his crewmen.  He was careful not to set foot on the shore; he merely went close in the boat with the machine gun ready on its prow and stood there with folded arms for all to see.  Let us allow Mister Kelly to explain further. 

            "We didn't want to call out to the captain so that the newts wouldn't find us.  Mister Lindley stood in the boat with his arms folded and called out, What's going on here?  Then the newts turned round to look at him.  There was a couple of hundred of them on the shore, and more and more of them kept swimming up from the sea and surrounded the boat.  What's going on here? the captain asked, and then a big newt went up close to him and said, Go back!  The captain just looked at him, he didn't say anything for a while and then he asked, Are you a newt?

            We are newts, said this newt.  Now please, go back!

            I want to see what you've been doing with my men, said the old man.  You should not have attacked us, said the newt.  You will now, please, go back to your ship!  The captain didn't say anything again for a while, and then he calmly said,

             Alright Jenkins, fire!  And Stoker Jenkins started firing at the newts with the machine gun."

            (Later, at the official enquiry, the affair was described in these words: In this respect, Captain James Lindley did no more than we are entitled to expect from a British seaman.)

            "All the newts were together in a group," Kelly's testimony continued, "and so they fell like corn in a field.  Some of them shot at Mr. Lindley with those guns of theirs, but he stood there with his arms folded and didn't even move.  Just then a black newt came out of the water just behind the boat, and it had something in its paw something like a tin can, with its other paw it pulled something out of it and threw it into the water under the boat.  After about five seconds there was a column of water came up and there was a loud bang, but sort of muffled sounding, and we could feel how it made the ground shake under our feet."

            (From Kelly's description, the official enquiry concluded that the newts had used an explosive known as W3, supplied to them for removing rock from under the water at the fortification works in Singapore, but it remained a mystery how it came into the hands of the newts on the Coconut Isles.  There were some who surmised that the explosives were given them by people, others supposed the newts themselves must already have had some long distance communications.  Public opinion clamoured for a ban on giving the newts such dangerous explosives; however the appropriate office declared that there was still no other explosive that was as "highly effective and relatively safe" as W3, and that's how things were left.)

            "The boat flew up into the air," Kelly's testimony continued," and was ripped to pieces.  All the newts, the ones that were still alive, rushed up to the place.  We couldn't really see whether Mr. Lindley was dead or alive; but all three of my shipmates - Donovan, Burke and Kennedy - jumped up and went to help him so that he wouldn't fall into the hands of those newts.  I wanted to run up as well but I had that twisted ankle so I sat where I was and pulled on my foot with both hands to try and get the bones in the right place.  So I don't know what happened next, but when I looked up there was Kennedy lying there face down in the sand and there was no sign at all of Donovan or Burke; there was just still something going on in the water."

            Kelly then escaped deeper into the island until he found a native village; but the natives behaved strangely towards him and were unwilling even to offer him shelter; perhaps they were afraid of the newts.  It was only seven weeks later that the Montrose was found, entirely plundered and abandoned, at anchor off the Coconut Isles by a fishing boat which rescued Kelly. 

            Some weeks later, a British gunboat, HMS Fireball, sailed to the Coconut Isles and spent the night waiting at anchor.  It was once again full moon, and the newts came out of the sea, took up their places in a circle on the sand and began their ceremonial dance.  Then His Majesty's Ship fired its first rounds of grapeshot into them.  Those newts that weren't cut to pieces immediately stiffened and then fled into the water; that was when the six cannons thundered out their terrible salvo and the only newts left were the few that still crawled towards the water on their broken limbs.  Then there was another salvo from the cannons, and then a third.

            When that had ended, HMS Fireball withdrew to half a mile offshore and began to fire into the water as it slowly sailed up and down the coast.  This lasted six hours and used about eight hundred rounds of ammunition.  Then the Fireball sailed away.  Over the following two days, the whole of the sea around the Keeling Isles was covered with the dismembered remains of thousands and thousands of newts. 

            That same night a battleship from Holland, the Van Dijck, fired three rounds into a colony of newts on the island of Goenong Api; the Japanese cruiser Hakodate shot three grenades onto the little newt island of Ailinglaplap; the French gunboat, Bechamel, disrupted the newts dance on the island of Rawaiwai with three shots.  This was a warning to the newts.  It was not in vain; there was no further incident anywhere comparable with the Keeling Killing, and the trade in newts, both organised and freelance, was able to flourish without disturbance and with official blessing.

2 - SKIRMISH IN NORMANDY

            A conflict that took place in Normandy somewhat later had a quite different character.  The newts there, most of whom worked in Cherbourg and lived on the surrounding beaches, had become very fond of apples.  Their employers, though, were unwilling to provide them with anything but the usual newt food (they said it would raise construction costs above the projected budget) and so the newts began to undertake scrumping raids in the nearby orchards.  The land owners complained about it to the prefecture and the newts were strictly forbidden to go anywhere on the beach outside the designated newt area, but this was of no help; the orchards continued to suffer steady losses, eggs seemed to disappear from the chicken coops, and every morning more and more guard dogs were found dead.  So the villagers began to guard their orchards themselves, armed with ancient shotguns, and shot the poaching newts.  It would have remained just a local matter; but the people of Normandy were also annoyed that their taxes had been raised and the price of ammunition had gone up, so they developed a deadly malice towards the newts and undertook raids against them in heavily armed gangs.  When they had shot a large number of newts even while they were at work, the newt's employers complained to the prefecture and the prefect ordered that the villagers should have their rusty old guns taken away.  The villagers of course resisted, and there were unpleasant conflicts between them and the gendarmes; the stubborn Normans were no longer just shooting at the newts but also, now, at the police.  Reinforcements were sent out to Normandy and carried out a house to house search.

            It was just about at this time that there was a very unpleasant incident near Coutances: a group of local lads attacked a newt who, they claimed, had been acting suspiciously near a hen coop.  They surrounded him with his back against the wall of a barn and began to throw bricks at him.  The injured salamander raised his hand and threw down something that looked like an egg; there was an explosion which ripped not only the newt to pieces but also three of the lads: eleven year old Pierre Cajus, sixteen year old Marcel Bérard and fifteen year old Louis Kermadec; and there were also five other children seriously injured to varying degrees.  The news quickly spread throughout the region; about seven hundred people came in buses from all around and attacked the newt colony in the bay of Basse Coutances, armed with shotguns, pitchforks and flails.  Around twenty newts were killed before the police were able to subdue the angry crowd.  Sappers called in from Cherbourg surrounded the bay with barbed wire; but that night the salamanders came out of the sea, destroyed the barbed wire fences with hand grenades and tried to make their way inland.  Several companies of soldiers with machine guns were quickly brought in on lorries and a chain of troops was used to try and keep the newts separate from people.  Meanwhile, the people were attacking the finance offices and police stations and one unpopular tax inspector was hanged on a lamppost with a placard saying: Away with the Newts!  The newspapers, especially those in Germany, talked about a revolution in Normandy; although the government in Paris issued vehement denials. 

            While the bloody skirmishes between people and newts spread along the coast of Calvados into Picardy and Pas de Calais, the ageing French cruiser, Jules Flambeau, sailed out of Cherbourg towards the western coast of Normandy; it was later found that the cruiser was only intended to calm and reassure the local inhabitants and the newts.  The Jules Flambeau dropped anchor a mile and a half from the bay of Basse Coutances; when night came, in order to create a stronger impression, the captain order coloured rockets to be set off.  This beautiful spectacle was watched by a large number of people on the shore; suddenly there was a hissing noise and an enormous column of water rose at the bow of the ship; it keeled over and there was a terrible explosion.  It was clear that the cruiser was sinking; within a quarter of an hour motor boats had come out from the nearby ports to offer help but they were not needed; apart from three men killed in the explosion itself the whole crew was saved and the Jules Flambeau went down five minutes later, its captain being the last to leave the ship with the memorable words, "There's nothing we can do".

            The official report, issued that same night, announced that the "ageing cruiser, the Jules Flambeau, which was anyway to be withdrawn from service within a few weeks from now, hit rocks while sailing by night and, with its boiler exploding, sank", but the press were not so easily satisfied; while the government influenced press maintained that the ship had hit a recently laid German mine, the opposition and foreign press carried headlines such as:

FRENCH CRUISER TORPEDOED by newts!

MYSTERIOUS EVENTS off the coast of Normandy

NEWTS IN REVOLT!

"We call to account," wrote one French member of parliament in his paper, "those who gave arms to the newts that they could use against people; who put bombs in their paws so that they could kill French villagers and children as they play; who gave these monstrosities from the sea the most modern torpedoes so that they could sink French shipping whenever they want.  Let us call them to account, I say: let them be indicted for murder, let them be dragged before a military tribunal for treason, let them be investigated for us to learn how much they profited from supplying the rabble of the oceans with the weapons to attack civilisation!"  And so on; there was simply a general consternation, people gathered on the streets and began to build barricades; Senegalese riflemen, their guns stacked in pyramids, were stationed on the boulevards of Paris, and waiting in the suburbs were tanks and armoured cars.  This was when the minister for marine affairs, Monsieur François Ponceau, stood in parliament, pale but decisive, and declared: The government accepts the responsibility for having equipped newts on French territory with guns, underwater machine guns, and torpedoes.  French newts, however, are equipped only with light, small calibre cannons; German salamanders are armed with 32cm. underwater mortars.  On French coasts there is only one underwater arsenal of hand grenades, torpedoes and explosives every twenty-four kilometres on average, on Italian coasts there are deep-water depots of armaments every twenty kilometres and in German waters every eighteen kilometres.  France cannot leave her shores unprotected and will not do so.  It is not possible for France to simply stop arming her newts.  the minister would issue instructions for the most thorough investigations possible to discover who is guilty for the fatal misunderstanding on the Normandy coast; it seems that the newts saw the coloured rockets as a signal for military action and wished to defend themselves.  The captain of the Jules Flambeau and the prefect of Cherbourg were both removed from their positions; a special commission was set up to ascertain how businesses involved in water works treated their newts with the expectation that that they would come under strict supervision in future.  The government deeply regretted the loss of human lives; Pierre Cajus, Marcel Bérard and Louis Kermadec would be decorated as national heroes, buried at government expense and their parents rewarded with a large sum of money.  Substantial changes were made at the highest level to the way French shipping was managed.  The government put a motion of no-confidence in the National Assembly, to be settled when more information was available, and the cabinet announced that it would remain in permanent session. 

            The newspapers, according to their political colour, urged punishment, eradication, colonisation or a crusade against the newts, a general strike, resignation of the government, the arrest of newt owners, the arrest of communist leaders and agitators and many other protective measures of this sort.  People began frantically to stockpile food when rumours of the shores and ports being closed off began to spread, and the prices of goods of every sort  soared; riots caused by rising prices broke out in the industrial cities; the stock exchange was closed for three days.  It was simply the more worrying and dangerous than it had been at any time over the previous three or four months.  But this was when the minister for agriculture, Monsieur Monti, stepped dexterously in.  He gave orders that several hundred loads of apples for the newts should be discharged into the sea twice a week along the French coasts, at government cost, of course.  This measure was remarkably successful in pacifying both the newts and the villagers in Normandy and elsewhere.  But Monsieur Monti went even further: there had long been deep and serious disturbances in the wine-growing regions, resulting from a lack of turnover, so he ordered that the state should provide each newt with a half litre of white wine per day.  At first the newts did not know what to do with this wine because it caused them serious diarrhoea and they poured it into the sea; but with a little time they clearly became used to it, and it was noticed that from then on the newts would show a lot more enthusiasm for sex, although with lower fertility rates than before.  In this way, problems to do with the newts and with agriculture were solved in one stroke; fear and tension were assuaged, and, in short, the next time there was another government crisis, caused by the financial scandal around Madame Töppler, the clever and well proven Monsieur Monti became the minister for marine affairs in the new cabinet. 

3 - INCIDENT IN THE ENGLISH CHANNEL

            Not long afterwards, a Belgian ferry, the Oudenbourg, was steaming its way from Ostende to Ramsgate.  In the straits of Dover the duty officer noticed that half a mile south of its usual course there was something going on in the water.  He could not be sure that there was no-one drowning there and so he ordered a change of course down to where the perturbance was taking place.  Two hundred passengers on the windward side of the ship were shown a very strange spectacle: in some places a vertical jet of water shot out from the surface, and in some of those vertical jets there could be seen something like a black body thrown up with it; the surface of the sea for one or two hundred yards all around was tossing and seething wildly while, from the depths, a loud rattling and humming could be heard.  "It was as if there was a small volcano erupting under the sea."  As the Oudenbourg slowly approached the place an enormous wave rose about ten yards ahead of it and a terrible noise thundered out like an explosion.  The entire ship was lifted violently and the deck was showered with a rain of water that was nearly boiling hot; and landing on the deck with the water was a strong black body which writhed and let out a sharp loud scream; it was a newt that had been injured and burnt.  The captain ordered the ship full steam astern so that the ship would not steam straight into the middle of this turbulent Hell; but the water all around had also begun to erupt and the surface of the sea was strewn with pieces of dismembered newts.  The ship was finally able to turn around and it fled northwards as fast as possible.  Then there was a terrible explosion about six hundred yards to the stern and a gigantic column of water and steam, perhaps a hundred yards high, shot out of the sea.  The Oudenbourg set course for Harwich and sent out a radio warning in all directions: "Attention all shipping, attention all shipping!  Severe danger on Ostende-Ramsgate lane.  Underwater explosion.  Cause unknown.  All shipping advised avoid area!"  All this time the sea was thundering and boiling, almost as if military manoeuvres had been taking place under the water; but apart from the erupting water and steam there was nothing to see.  From both Dover and Calais, destroyers and torpedo boats set out at full steam and squadrons of military aircraft flew to the site of the disturbance; but by the time they got there all they found was that the surface was discoloured with something like a yellow mud and covered with startled fish and newts that had been torn to pieces.  At first it was thought that a mine in the channel must have exploded; but once the shores on both sides of the Straits of Dover had been ringed off with a chain of soldiers and the English prime-minister had, for the fourth time in the history of the world, interrupted his Saturday evening and hurried back to London, there were those who thought the incident must be of extremely serious international importance.  The papers carried some highly alarming rumours, but, oddly enough, this time remained far from the truth; nobody had any idea that Europe, and the whole world with it, stood for a few days on the brink of a major war.  It was only several years later that a member of the then British cabinet, Sir Thomas Mulberry, failed to be re-elected in a general election and published his memoirs setting out just what had actually happened; but by then, though, nobody was interested.

            This, in short, is what happened: Both England and France had begun constructing underwater fortresses for the newts in the English Channel.  By means of these fortresses it would have been possible, in case of war, to close it off to shipping entirely.  Then, of course, both great powers accused the other of having started it first; but in all probability both sides began fortification at the same time in the fear that the friendly neighbour across the channel might get there before they did.  In short, two enormous concrete fortresses  armed with heavy cannons, torpedoes, extensive minefields and all that modern weapon technology could give them, had been growing steadily under the surface of the Straits of Dover; on the English side this terrible fortress of the deep was operated by two divisions of heavy newts and around thirty thousand working salamanders, on the French side there were three divisions of first class warrior newts.  It seems that on the critical day, a working colony of British newts came across French salamanders on the seabed in the middle of the strait and some kind of misunderstanding developed.  The French insisted that their newts had been working peacefully when they were attacked by the British who wanted to repel them, that British armed newts had tried to abduct some French newts who, of course, had defended themselves.  At this, British military salamanders began firing into French labouring newts with hand grenades and mortars so that the French newts were forced to use similar weapons.  The government of France felt compelled to require full satisfaction from His Britannic Majesty's government and complete withdrawal from the disputed area of the seabed in order to ensure that no similar incident would occur again in the future. 

            On the other hand, the British government sent a special note to the government of the French Republic informing them that French militarised newts had entered the English half of the channel and were about to lay down mines there.  The British newts pointed out that they were in their working area; at which the French salamanders, armed to the teeth, responded by throwing hand grenades which killed several working newts on the British side.  It was with regret that His Majesty's Government felt obliged to require full satisfaction from the government of the French Republic and the assurance that French military newts would never again enter the British side of the English Channel.

            At this the French government declared that it could no longer tolerate having a neighbouring state building underwater fortifications in immediate proximity to the French coast.  As far as a misunderstanding on the bed of the English Channel was concerned the republic suggested that, in accordance with the London Convention, the dispute be presented to the international court in The Hague.  The British government replied that it could not and would not subject the security of British coasts to decisions made by any external body.  As victims of the French attack they once again required, and with all possible emphasis, an apology, payment for damages and a guarantee for the future.  British shipping stationed at Malta steamed westward at full speed; the Atlantic fleet was given orders to assemble at Portsmouth and Yarmouth.

            The French government ordered the mobilisation of its naval reserve.

            It now seemed that neither side could give way; it clearly meant after all nothing less than mastery over the entire channel.  At this critical moment Sir Thomas Mulberry discovered the surprising fact that there actually were no working newts or military newts operating on the English side, or at least not officially, as the British Isles were still bound by Sir Samuel Mandeville's prohibition on any salamander working on British coasts or surface waters.  This meant that the British government could not officially maintain that French newts had attacked any English newts; the whole issue therefore was reduced to the question whether French newts, deliberately or in error, had crossed over into British sovereign waters.  French officials promised that they would investigate the matter; the English government never even suggested that the matter should be presented to the international court in The Hague.  Finally the British admiralty came to an agreement with the French admiralty that there would be a five kilometre wide neutral zone between underwater fortifications in the English Channel, and in this way the exceptional friendliness existing between the two states was confirmed. 

4 - THE NORTHERN NEWT

            Not many years after the first newt colonies had been settled in the North Sea and the Baltic a German scientist, Dr. Hans Thüring, found that the Baltic newt had certain distinctive physical features - clearly as a result of its environment; that it was somewhat lighter in colour, it walked on two legs, and its cranial index indicated a skull that was longer and narrower than other newts.  This variety was given the name Northern Newt or Noble Newt (Andrias Scheuchzeri var. nobilis erecta Thüring). 

            The German press took this Baltic newt as its own, and enthusiastically stressed that it was because of its German environment that this newt had developed into a different and superior sub-species, indisputably above the level of any other salamander.  Journalists wrote with contempt of the degenerate newts of the Mediterranean, stunted both physically and mentally, of the savage newts of the tropics and of the inferior, barbaric and bestial newts of other nations.  The slogan of the day was From the Great Newt to the German Übernewt.  And what had been the origin of all the latter day newts on German soil?  Had its glorious miocene skull not been found in Öhningen by the learned German Doctor Johannes Jakob Scheuchzer?  There was therefore not the slightest doubt that the original Andrias Scheuchzeri had had its origin in the geological past on German soil; its migration to other seas and climatic zones was something it had had to pay for with its decline and degeneration; but as soon as it found itself back on the soil of its homeland it once again became what it had been in the past: the noble northern Scheuchzer Newt, light in colour, erect in gait and long in skull.  It was only on German soil that newts could return to their pure and highest form, such as it had been found by the great Johannes Jakob Scheuchzer from the impression in the quarry at Öhningen.  This was why Germany needed new and longer shores, it needed colonies, it needed the seas of the world so that a new generation of racially pure, original German salamanders could develop in German waters.  We need new living room for our newts, wrote the German newspapers; and so that this fact was always present to the German eyes a grand memorial to Johannes Jakob Scheuchzer was set up in Berlin.  The great doctor was depicted with a thick book in his hand; at his sits the erect and noble Nordic newt, gazing into the distance towards the boundless shores of the worlds oceans.  There was, of course, a celebratory speech given at the unveiling of this national monument, and it attracted the attention of newspapers all around the world.  A New Threat from Germany, asserted, in particular, the press in England.  We have become used to this sort of tone but if, on an official occasion such as this, we are told that Germany is in need of five thousand kilometres of new coastline within three years we have to choice but to give a clear response: Just You Try It!  See what happens if you encroach on British shores.  We are prepared, and in three years time we will be even better prepared.  England must have - and will have - a navy as large as the two biggest continental powers put together; this relation of power cannot ever be changed.  Anyone who wishes to unleash an insane arms race in naval weaponry is welcome to try; no Briton will ever allow his country to fall a single step behind.

            "We accept the challenge laid down by the Germans," declared the first lord of the admiralty, Sir Francis Drake, in parliament and speaking on behalf of the government.  "Whoever tries to lay a hand on any of the worlds oceans will have to find himself facing the might of our ships.  The British Empire is strong enough to repel any assault on its outposts or the shores of its colonies and dominions.  The construction of new land, island, fortress or airbase in any sea will be considered an attack of this sort if its waves wash onto coastline under British dominion, however tiny.  Let this be the last warning to anyone who might wish to change the outline of the world's seas, even if by no more than a yard."  In response, parliament allowed the construction of new warships at a preliminary cost of half a million pounds sterling.  It was indeed an impressive response to the construction of the provocative memorial to Johannes Jakob Scheuchzer in Berlin; this memorial had cost no more than twelve thousand reichsmark.

            The outstanding French publicist, the Marquis de Sade, who was always well informed, responded to this speech in this way: The British first lord of the admiralty declares that Great Britain is ready for any eventuality.  That is all well and good, but is the noble lord aware that Germany has a standing army of heavily armed newts in the Baltic, currently comprising five million professional salamander soldiers, who are ready to engage in military action at any time on land or sea?  On top of that must be considered the seventeen million newts engaged in technical and supportive functions who act as a reserve and are ready, at any time, to become an army of occupation?  The Baltic salamander is presently the greatest soldier in the world; trained to the perfect mentality, it sees war is its proper vocation and the most noble; it enters every battle with the enthusiasm of a fanatic, with cool technical planning and the awful discipline of Prussia.

            And is the British First Lord of the Admiralty moreover aware that Germany is frantically building new transport ships, any one of which can carry a whole brigade of warrior salamanders?  Is he aware that hundreds and hundreds of small submarines are being built with a range of three to five thousand kilometres and whose crew will consist of Baltic newts?  Is he aware that gigantic underwater fuel depots are being established in various places?  So now, let us ask the question once again: can the British citizen be certain that his great country really is well prepared for any eventuality?

            It is not difficult to imagine, the Marquis de Sade continued, what a difference could be made to the outcome the next war by newts blockading the coasts and equipped with underwater howitzers, mortars and torpedoes; by my faith, this is the first time in history that no-one need envy the English in their splendid isolation surrounded by water.  And while we are addressing these questions: is the British admiralty aware also that the Baltic newts are equipped with a new, normally peaceful, apparatus called the pneumatic drill which is capable of drilling ten metres deep into the best Swedish granite in an hour and can penetrate fifty or sixty metres deep into English chalk in the same time?  (This was ascertained by secret experiments carried out at night by the German technical expedition on the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth of last month on the English coast between Hythe and Folkestone right under the nose of Dover Castle.)  I suggest that our friends across the channel calculate for themselves how many weeks it would take for Kent or Essex to be drilled through below sea level like a piece of Swiss cheese.  Until now, the Englishman on his island has always looked anxiously to the horizon as the place from which any harm to his flourishing cities, his Bank of England or his warm cottage, so cosy in its evergreen coat of ivy, might come. But now he had better put his ear to the ground where his children are playing: might he not hear, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, a digging and a scraping as, step by step, the newts with these tireless and fearsome drills grind their way deeper to create the paths for laying hitherto unknown explosives.  The last word of the age we live in is not war in the air, it is war beneath the water and the land.  We have heard the self confident words from the commanders of proud Albion; the ship of Albion today is still a vessel of great power, borne on the waves and master of them; but there might come a day when the waves will close over a vessel that has been broken and send it down to the depths of the ocean.  Would it not be better to face this danger sooner rather than later?  Within three years it will be too late!

            The Marquis de Sade was a brilliant publicist, and his warning caused great consternation in England; despite all the denials, people in every part of England were able to hear the newts drilling into the ground beneath their feet.  Officials in Germany, of course, issued a categorical denial and repudiated the Marquis' speech, declaring that from start to finish it was no more than provocation and hostile propaganda; at the same time, however, combined manoeuvres were taking place in the Baltic involving the German navy, land forces and warrior newts; squads of sapper newts, in full view of foreign military attachés, under-drilled and blew up six square kilometres of sand dunes near Rügenwald.  It was said to be a wonderful spectacle when, with a terrifying roar, the ground rose up and an enormous wall of steam, sand and tree trunks flew skywards; it became as dark as night, and the sand that had been thrown up was scattered over a radius of nearly fifty kilometres, even as far away as Warsaw there was still a sandy rain falling several days later.  This enormous explosion left so much fine sand and dust suspended in the atmosphere that all through the rest of that year the sunsets throughout Europe were exceptionally beautiful, coloured a bloody red, and fiery like never before.  The sea created after this piece of coast had been blown away was later given the name the Scheuchzer See, and it was the destination for countless school trips for German children singing their favourite newt anthem, Solche Erfolche erreichen nur deutsche Molche. 

5 - WOLF MEYNERT WRITES HIS OEUVRE

            It may have been just those tragically glorious sunsets that inspired the lone philosopher, Wolf Meynert, to write his monumental work, The Decline and Fall of Man.  We can easily imagine him as he ambles along the shore, his hair loose and his raincoat flapping in the wind, gazing enthralled at the sky that has turned into a blaze of fire and blood.  "Yes," he mutters absent mindedly, "yes, now is the time to write the afterword to the history of mankind!"  And so he wrote it. 

            The tragedy of the human race has reached its final curtain, Wolf Meynert began.  Despite mans lust for enterprise and technical prosperity, all this is no more than the lurid red on the face of an organism already condemned to die.  Man has never before come face to face with such an elevated conjuncture in the life of his species than today; but find me one man who is happy; show me the class that lives in contentment, the nation that does not fear its existence under threat.  In the midst of all the gifts of civilisation, in the rich luxury of material and spiritual property we are all of us falling inexorably into doubt, anguish and unease.  Thus Wolf Meynert went on, with irrefutable logic, to analyse the spiritual state of the modern word, this mix of fear and uncertainty, mistrust and megalomania, cynicism and pettiness: in a word, Wolf Meynert concluded, desperation.  Typical portents of the end.  Moral agony.

So the question is: When was man ever capable of happiness?  Individuals, yes, just like any other living thing; but mankind, never.  The whole of mans misfortunes arise because he had to become human, or that he became human too late when he was already incorrigibly differentiated into nations and races and faiths and classes and factions and rich and poor and educated and uneducated and lords and slaves.  If you take horses, wolves, sheep, cats, foxes, deer, bears and goats, and you herd them into one fold and force them to live in this nonsensical mix-up that you call the Rules of Society and force them to observe these rules, then the result will be unhappiness, discontent and death, a society where not even a divine being could feel at home.  That is a more or less precise depiction of the big and hopeless heterogenous herd that we call mankind.  Nations, classes, factions cannot all live together in the long term without causing each other worries and getting in each others way until it becomes unbearable; they can all live separated from each other - which was only possible for as long as the world was big enough for them - or they can live against each other, in a struggle of life and death.  Biological entities such as race, nation and class have only, where people are concerned, one natural road to take, and that is towards a homogenous and undisturbed bliss; to make a place for themselves and annihilate the others.  And that is just what the human race failed to do in time.  Now it is too late.  We have set up too many doctrines and obligations for ourselves with which we protect these "others" instead of getting rid of them; we have thought up a code of morals, human rights, contracts, laws, equality, humanity and all the rest; we have created a fictitious mankind which includes ourselves and these "others" in some imaginary higher unit.  What a fatal mistake!  We have set our law of morals above the laws of biology.  We have violated the great natural assumption of all societies; that only a homogenous society can be a happy society.  And this attainable prosperity is something that we have sacrificed to a great but impossible dream: the creation of one mankind and one social and moral code for all people, nations, classes and factions.  Grandiose stupidity.  In its way it was man's only honourable attempt to rise above himself.  And now he has to pay for this supreme idealism with his own inevitable end. 

            The process by which man tries to organise himself in society is as old as civilisation itself, as old as the first laws and the first communities; after all these millennia, all that he has attained is the deepening of the gulf between races, nations and classes; world opinions have dug themselves deep and firm in the bottomless pit that we see today, and we cannot fail to see that mans unfortunate and historic attempt to make all peoples into one mankind has definitively and tragically collapsed.  We are finally beginning to realise it; and that is why there are these plans and efforts to unite human society in a different way, a radical way, the way of making room just for one nation, just for one class or just for one faith.  But who can say how deeply we have already been infected with the incurable disease of differentiation?  Sooner or later, every supposedly homogenous unit inevitably breaks back down into a disparate jumble of various interests, parties, classes and so on, who will either persecute each other or will suffer together in silence.  There is no way out.  We are caught in a vicious circle; but history will not continue going round in circles forever.  Nature herself has taken care of that by creating a place on Earth for the newts. 

            It is by more than mere chance, Wolf Meynert went on, that the newts have burgeoned just at the time when mans chronic disease, this badly assembled and quickly decaying super-organism, will progress into agony.  With few insignificant exceptions, the newts are the only homogenous and large-scale unit; they have so far failed to create any deep distinctions of race, language, nation, state, faith class or caste; there are no masters and slaves among them, no freemen and serfs, no rich and poor; differences have been imposed upon them by their type of work, but for their own perceptions they are of one family, a monolith, of one seed, in all their parts they have the same primitive biology, the same poor natural endowments, the same burdens, and the same low living standard.  The last Negroes and Eskimos have incomparably higher living conditions, enjoy infinitely richer property both materially and culturally, than these billions of civilised newts.  And there is not even any indication of suffering among the newts.  On the contrary.  What we see is that they have no need of any of the things with which man seeks escape and relief from the worries of his life or the horrors of his metaphysics; they survive adequately without philosophy, without life after death and without art; they do not know what are fantasy, humour, mysticism, game-playing or dreams; they go through life simply as realists.  They are as remote from man as ants or herrings; and they distinguish themselves from ants and herrings only by having moved over into the environment of another species, the civilisation of man.  There they have settled themselves just as dogs have settled into mans shelter; they cannot live without it, but they do not cease to be what they are; a very primitive and little differentiated type of animal.  All they wish to do is live and multiply; they might even be happy, for there is no sense of inequality to disturb them.  They are simply homogenous.  For this reason they might one day, indeed one day very soon, find no difficulty in doing that which has escaped the efforts of man: to disperse their species with its unity intact all around the globe, a single global community, in a word, universal newtdom.  This day will see the end of millennia of agony for the human genus.  Our planet will not have enough room for two faction, both of which strive to dominate the whole world.  One of them must give way.  We know already which that will be. 

            Distributed around the globe today are around twenty thousand million civilised newts, which is about ten times more than all people put together; it is both a matter of historical logic and biological necessity that the newts that man has subjugated will some day free themselves; that being homogenous they will unite; and that thus having become the greatest power the world has ever seen they will take over.  Could anyone be such a fool as to think they would then spare mankind?  Could anyone think they will repeat the mistake, made again and again throughout history, of exploiting the defeated nations and classes instead of just annihilating them?  Would it be in their interest to keep establishing new differences between men so that then, simply through generosity and idealism, they would try to overcome them?  No, this is a historic error that the newts will not commit, declared Wolf Meynert, if only because they will have been warned in this book!  They will be the inheritors of the whole of human civilisation; all that we have done or attempted to do in our efforts to shape the world will simply fall into their laps;  but if they tried to include ourselves with this legacy, they would be acting against their own interests.  They must rid themselves of mankind if they wish to maintain their own uniformity.  If they failed to act thus they would they would create, sooner or later, their own destructive tendency among themselves: they would create differences and they would have to endure them.  But this is something of which we should have no fear; there is today no creature that will continue the history of mankind that would repeat his suicidal madness.

            There is no doubt that the world of the newts will be happier than that of mankind; it will be unified, homogenous and governed everywhere in the same spirit.  Newt will not be distinct from newt by language, opinion, faith or his requisites for life.  There will be no differences among them of culture or class, merely the allocation of tasks.  No-one will be master or slave, as all will serve just one Great Newt Whole which will be god, government, employer and spiritual leader.  There will be just one nation and just one class.  The world will be better and more perfect than ours will have been.  This is the only possible Brave New World.  Let us therefore make room for it; man is facing his expiry, and there is no more that he can do than to hasten his end with tragic beauty, that is, if it is not too late even for that.

            Now lets express the views of Wolf Meynert in a way that is more accessible: we are aware that in this way it will lose a lot of its force and its depth, which was so fascinating for the whole of Europe in its time.  The young were especially fascinated and adopted a faith in the decline and annihilation of mankind with great enthusiasm.  The German Reich banned the teaching of the great pessimist for a number of political reasons and Wolf Meynert had to flee into Switzerland, but the whole of the educated world was nonetheless content to adopt Meynert's theories about the end of mankind; his book, 632 pages long, was published in all the languages of the world and many millions of copies were distributed, even among the newts. 

6 - X GIVES HIS WARNING

            It may have been as a result of this prophetic book that the literary and artistic avant garde in all the cultural centres declared, After Us, the Salamanders!, The Future belongs to the Newts, Newts Mean Cultural Revolution.  Even if they don't have their own art (they explained) at least they are not burdened with idiotic ideals, dried up traditions and all the rigid and boring things taught in schools and given the name of poetry, music, architecture, philosophy and culture in any of its forms.  The word culture is senile and it makes us sick.  Human art has been with us for too long and is worn-out and if the newts have never fallen for it we will make a new art for them.  We, the young, will blaze the path for a new world of salamandrism:  we wish to be the first newts, we are the salamanders of tomorrow!  And so the young poetic movement of salamandrism was born, triton - or tritone - music was composed and pelagic painting, inspired by the shape world of jellyfish, fish and corals, made its appearance.  There were also the water regulating structures made by the newts themselves which were discovered as a new source of beauty and dignity.  We've had enough of nature, the slogans went; bring on the smooth, concrete shores instead of the old and ragged cliffs!  Romanticism is dead; the continents of the future will be outlined with clean straight lines and re-shaped into conic sections and rhombuses; the old geological must be replaced with a world of geometry.  In short, there was once again a new trend that was to be the thing of the future, a new aesthetic sensation and new cultural manifestoes; anyone who failed to join in with the rise of salamandrism before it was too late felt bitterly that he had missed his time, and he would take his revenge by making calls for the purity of mankind, a return to the values of the people and nature and other reactionary slogans.  A concert of tritone music was booed off the stage in Vienna, at the Salon des Indépendents in Paris a pelagic painting called Capriccio en Bleu was slashed by an unidentified perpetrator; salamandrism was simply victorious, and its rise was unstoppable.

            Needless to say, there was no shortage of those who were opposed to this change and stood against "newtmania" as it was called.  The most fundamentalist piece of opposition came in the form of an anonymous pamphlet that came out in England under the title X Gives his Warning.  The leaflet enjoyed wide circulation, but the identity of its author was never established; there were many who thought it must have been written by some high official in the church, swayed by the observation that X is an abbreviation for Christ.

            In the first chapter the author tried to use statistics about the newts, apologising at the same time for the inaccuracy of the figures he was using.  The estimated total number of salamanders at this time ranged between seven and twenty times the total number of people on the Earth.  It was just as uncertain how many factories, oil wells, weed plantations, and eel farms the newts had under the sea making use of water power and other natural sources of energy; there were not even any estimates of the newts industrial manufacturing capacity; least of all did anyone know how well armed the newts were.  We knew that the salamanders were dependent on people for their metals, engineering parts, explosives and many types of chemical, but not only did every state keep strictly secret how much weaponry and other products their supplied to their newts, but we also knew remarkably little about what the newts did with the materials they bought from people once they were down in the depths of the sea.  One thing that was certain was that the newts did not want people to know these things; over the previous few years so many divers sent down to the seabed had been drowned that it could not possibly be seen as mere chance.  It hardly need be said how worrying this was, both from the industrial point of view and the military.  It is obviously very difficult to imagine, X continued in the following paragraphs, what the newts might want of people, or how much they could simply take.  They cannot live on dry land and there is no way for us to dictate to them what they do under the water.  Our respective living environments are completely and unchangeably separate.  We require a certain amount of work from them, but in return we give them plenty of food and provide them with raw materials and products such as metals that, without us, they would not have at all.  But even if there is no practical reason for any animosity between ourselves and the newts there is, I would say, metaphysical reason: contrasted with creatures of the surface we see creatures of the deep abyss; creatures of the night with creatures of the day; dark ponds of water with bright, dry land.  The boundary between water and land has somehow become sharper than it used to be: our land borders on their water.  We could live perfectly well separate from each other, exchanging no more than certain goods and services, indefinitely; but it is hard to rid ourselves of the fear that that is not how things will turn out.  And why not?  I am not able to give you any precise reasons; but this fear is nonetheless with us; it seems like some kind of intuition that one day the sea itself will turn against the land to settle the question of who lives with whom. 

            I have to admit that this anxiety is somewhat irrational, X went on; but it would seem like a great relief if the newts came out against mankind with some kind of demands.  We would at least then have the chance to negotiate with them, we would be able to make various concessions, contracts and compromises with them; but this silence of theirs is a thing of horror. This incomprehensible reticence makes me afraid.  They might, for instance, wish to ask for certain political advantages for themselves; legislation about the newts is, to put it bluntly, outdated in every state of the world and is not worthy of the dignity of a creature as civilised as the newts nor of a creature so strong in numbers.  There is a need to work out new rights and responsibilities for the newts, and to do so in the way that will be of most advantage to them; their working conditions must be improved and they must be better rewarded for the amount of work they do.  There are many ways in which their circumstances could be improved if only they would ask for it.  Then we would be in a position to make certain concessions and bind ourselves to proper contracts with proper pay; at the very least this would buy time for a number of years.  However, the newts ask for nothing; all they do is raise their output and order more supplies; now is the time when we need to ask where, on both sides, this will all come to an end.  We used formerly to talk about the yellow peril, or black or red; but they were at least people, and we can at least have some idea of what it is that people will want.  But even if we still have no idea how to defend ourselves or even whom we are to defend ourselves against there is one thing that is quite clear: that if the newts stand on one side then the whole of mankind will be on the other. 

            People against newts!  The time has come when it needs to be formulated thus.  It must be said frankly that the normal person has an instinctive hatred of the salamanders, he loathes them - and he is afraid of them.  There is something like a chill veil of horror that has fallen over the whole of mankind.  How else are we to explain this frenetic worldliness, this insatiable thirst for fun and debauchery, this orgiastic abandon that has taken control of peoples minds?  There has never been a comparable collapse of morals since the time when the Roman Empire collapsed under the onslaught of the barbarians.  This is more than the fruit of unprecedented material prosperity, it is the desperation born of suppressed fear and anguish at the thought of our own overturn and annihilation.  Drink deep the last goblet, for tomorrow we die!  What a disgrace, what a punishment!  It seems that God, in His terrible mercy, wishes to allow nations and classes to perish if once they have begun to rush down the road to destruction.  Are we to read mene tekel in fiery letters at the feast of mankind?  Look at the words written in light shining all through the hours of darkness on the walls of our debauched and dissolute cities!  In this way we human beings are already comparable with the newts: we live more by night than by day. 

            If only these salamanders were not so horribly mediocre, exclaimed X in his anxiety.  It is true that they are, to some extent, educated, but this has the effect of limiting them further as all that they have taken from human civilisation is that which is the most commonplace and useful, things that are mechanical and repeatable.  They stand at the side of man like Wagner at the side of Faust; they learn from these books like the human Faust but with this difference, that this is all they want and suffer from no doubts or questions.  The most horrifying thing is that this type of civilised mediocrity, educable but dull and complacent, exists on such a large scale; millions and thousands of millions of individuals all the same; or rather, perhaps I am mistaken, and the most horrifying thing of all is that they have been so successful.  They have taught themselves to use machines and numbers, and they have shown that that is all that is needed to become masters of the world.  All parts of human civilisation that are without purpose, that are playful, fantastic or antiquated, they have ignored; in this way they have ignored all that makes man human, adopting only that which is purely practical, technical and utilisable.  And this pitiful caricature of human civilisation has achieved awesome things; it builds wonders of technology, renovates our old planet and is even a source of fascination of people themselves.  From Wagner, his apprentice and servant, Faust learned the secret of success and of mediocrity.  Mankind has either to engage in an epoch-making conflict of life and death with the newts or he will become like the newts, never to regain his humanness.  As far as I am concerned, X concluded sadly, I would rather see the former. 

            X now gives you his warning, the unknown author continued.  It is still possible to shake off this cold and slimey ring that is wrapped around us all.  We must rid ourselves of the salamanders.  There are already too many of them;  they are armed, we know almost nothing about the power of their weapons and they could well turn them against us; but a danger for us more horrible than mere strength and numbers is the success, nay triumph, achieved by their lack of self worth.  We do not know what it is that we are to fear more; the technology they have taken from human beings, or their sinister, cold and bestial cruelty; but the two of them together create something inconceivably terrifying and almost diabolic.  In the name of culture, in the name of Christianity and mankind we must free ourselves from these newts.  And here he called on an unnamed apostle:

            You madmen, stop feeding the newts!  Stop employing them, eschew their services, let them move away somewhere else where they will feed themselves just like any other sea creature!  Nature herself has already created order in her copious bounty; but only if people - human civilisation and human history - will stop working for the salamanders! 

            And stop providing the newts with weapons, end their supply of metals and explosives, send them no more of the machinery and equipment made by man!  We do not give the tiger his teeth or venom to the snake; we do not stoke the fires of volcanoes or undermine our dams.  Let us ban supplies to any of the seas of the world, let us place the newts outside the law, let them be cursed and banished from our world, let there be a League of Nations to unite us against the newts!  The whole of mankind must be prepared to defend its existence with sword in hand; let the king of Sweden, the Pope of  Rome or a union of nations call a world conference to unite all the civilised states of the world, let us create a united world - or at least a union of all Christian nations - wherewith to oppose the salamanders!  We are today at a turning point.  Under the terrible pressure of the salamander threat, it is possible for man to behave responsibly and create a United States of the World to avoid a world war with all its countless victims.  May God will it!  If it is His will, then the newts will not have come in vain and will have been the instrument of God.

 

            This pathetic pamphlet excited wide support among the general public.  Old women, in particular, agreed that there had been an unprecedented decline in moral values.  On the other hand, the business pages of the newspapers pointed out it would not be possible to reduce the goods supplied to the newts without causing a serious decline in human industrial output and a crisis in many other areas.  Agriculture had come to depend on an enormous demand for maize, potatoes and other crops used for newt fodder; if the number of salamanders was reduced there would be a sharp decline in the market price of foodstuffs which would bring farmers to the brink of ruin.  The trades unions suspected Mr. X was just a reactionary and declared that they would not allow anything that would  impede the supply of goods to the newts; the working man had only just achieved full employment and a proper wage and now Mr. X was wanting to snatch the bread from their hands; the working class is in sympathy with the newts and rejects any attempt to lower their standard of living or deliver them, poor and defenceless, into the hands of capitalism.  As far as any League of Nations against the newts was concerned, they denied that there could be any serious political circumstances when it could be needed; there were indeed both the Society of Nations and the London Convention in which sea-going states bound themselves not to equip their newts with heavy weaponry.  Needless to say, it is not easy to persuade any state to disarm if it cannot be sure that no other seagoing power is not arming its newts in secret and thereby raising its military power at the expense of its neighbours.  Likewise, no state or continent is able to force its newts to move somewhere else, simply because that would have the undesirable effect of raising the industrial and agricultural output, not to mention the military power, of other states and continents.  And objections of this sort, which any thinking person would have to acknowledge, were raised everywhere. 

            Despite all this, the pamphlet, X Gives his Warning, had far reaching effects.  Movements to oppose the newts spread to almost every country in the world and a variety of organisations such as The Association for the Elimination of the Newts, The Anti-Salamander Club, The Committee for Human Protection were established everywhere.  Newt delegates at the thirteenth session of the Commission for the Study of Newt Affairs in Geneva were insulted when they tried to take part. The boards that fenced off the coastline were daubed with threatening graffiti such as Death to the Newts, Salamanders Go Home etc.  Many newts had stones thrown at them; no salamander now dared to raise his head above water in daylight.  But, despite all of this, there was no sign whatever from them of protest or attempt at retaliation.  They were simply invisible, by day at least; and the people who peered through the barriers saw no more than the endless and wearily soughing waves.   "Just look at these monstrosities," they said with hatred, "they won't even show themselves!"

            And it was this tense silence that was suddenly broken by the thunder of the Louisiana Earthquake. 

 

7 - THE LOUISIANA EARTHQUAKE

            On that day, on the 11th. November at one o'clock in the morning, there was a powerful earth tremor felt in New Orleans; some of the buildings in the black areas collapsed; people ran out onto the street in panic, but there was no second tremor; there was only a short, howling cyclone that struck with a sudden furious onslaught, smashing windows and blowing the rooves off the houses where the negroes lived; a few dozen people were killed; and then there was a heavy downpour of mud.

            As the New Orleans firemen went out to help in the worst affected areas, telegrams were tapped out from Morgan City, Plaquemine, Baton Rouge and Lafayette: SOS! Send help! City half destroyed by earthquake and cyclone; Mississippi dam at risk of breaking; send searchers, ambulances, all able-bodied men immediately! - From Fort Livingston there was only this laconic question: Hello, anything happening there?  It was followed by a message from Lafayette: Attention!  Attention! Worst affected New Iberia.  Connection between Iberia and Morgan City seems broken.  Send help there! - Morgan City telephoned in reply: No communications with New Iberia.  Roads and railroads seem destroyed.  Send ships and airplanes to Vermillion Bay!  We need nothing.  Have around thirty dead and hundred injured. - Then a telegram came from Baton Rouge: Received news, worst affected New Iberia.  Concentrate resources New Iberia.  Here need only workers, urgent, dam in danger of breaking.  Doing all possible.  And then: Hello, hello, Shreveport, Natchitoches, Alexandria sending trains with help to New Iberia.  Hello, hello, Memphis, Winana, Jackson sending trains via Orleans.  All vehicles heading dam Baton Rouge. - Hello, Pascagoula here.  Some dead here.  Need help?

            By now fire engines, ambulances and trainfuls of helpers and supplies were on their way to Morgan city - Patterson - Franklin.  It was not until after four in the morning that the first accurate news arrived: Railroad closed by floods between Franklin and New Iberia, five miles west of Franklin; seems deep fissure opened by earthquake, connects with Vermillion Bay and flooded with seawater.  As far as ascertained, fissure extends from Vermillion Bay east-northeast, near Franklin turns northwards, opens into Grand Lake, continues northwards until line Plaquemine - Lafayette, ending in former lake; second branch fissure connects Grand Lake westwards with Napoleonville Lake.  Fissure around fifty miles total length, width one to seven miles.  Epicenter apparently here.  Seems amazing luck fissure missed all major towns.  Loss of life nonetheless substantial.  In Franklin twenty-four inches rain of mud, in Patterson eighteen inches.  Reports from Atchafalaya Bay, sea retreated two miles at time of earthquake, then hundred foot tidal wave.  Feared many dead on coast.  Still no communication with New Iberia.

            Meanwhile a train carrying supplies from Natchitoches entered New Iberia from the west; the first reports, sent by a roundabout route via Lafayette and Baton Rouge, were awful.  The train had not been able to get closer than a few miles from New Iberia because the track had been swept away by the mud.  As people fled from the disaster they reported that a volcano of mud had erupted a couple of miles to the east of the town and instantly drenched the area with a thin, cold rain of it; New Iberia, they said, had disappeared under an onslaught of mud.  All work was made extremely difficult by the dark and the continuing rain of mud.  There was still no direct connection with New Iberia. 

            At the same time, news arrived from Baton Rouge:

thousands of men working on mississippi dam stop if only rain would stop stop need picks shovels trucks workers stop sending help to plaquemine

Dispatch from Fort Jackson:

 

one thirty morning sea wave destroyed thirty houses don't know what it was approximately seventy people swept to sea only now repaired equipment post office destroyed hello wire saying what happened urgent telegrapher fred dalton hello please tell minnie im ok apart from broken hand and loss of clothes but at least equipment ok fred

 

The report from Port Eads was somewhat shorter:

 

some dead burywood swept entirely to sea

 

By about eight in the morning the first aircraft sent to help the affected areas had returned.  The whole of the coast from Port Arthur (Texas) to Mobile (Alabama) had been hit by a tidal wave; ruined or damaged buildings were everywhere.  The south-eastern part of Louisiana (from the road between Lake Charles and Alexandria to Natchez) and the south of Mississippi (as far as the line Jackson - Hattiesburg - Pascagoula) were swamped with mud.  A new bay stretched inland from Vermillion Bay, two to eight miles wide and reaching in on a zig-zag line almost as far as Plaquemine like a long fjord.  New Iberia seemed to have been seriously damaged but many people could be seen digging the mud away from roads and houses.  Impossible to land.  The most serious loss of life likely to have been on the coast.  A steamer, clearly from Mexico, sunk off Point au Fer.  Sea around Chandeleur Islands covered in debris.  Rain easing off over the entire area.  Visibility good.

           

            The first special issue of the New Orleans paper went out at just after four in the morning; as the day went on more issues were published and the details accumulated; at eight in the morning appeared the first photographs of the affected areas with maps of the new inlets from the sea.  At half past eight they printed an interview with the celebrated seismologist from Memphis University, Dr. Wilbur R. Bownell, about the cause of the earthquake in Louisiana.  It's still too early to come to any firm conclusions, the famous scientist declared, but it seems that these tremors have nothing to do with the volcanic activity, which has been so active up till now, in the volcano belt of central Mexico which lies directly across from the affected area.  Today's earthquake seems rather to be of tectonic origin, that's to say it was caused by the weight and pressure of mountains: one the one side there are the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Madre, and on the other side there are Appalachian Hills on the extensive lowlands of the Gulf of Mexico which continue down to the mouth of the Mississippi.  The chasm that now runs up from Vermillion Bay is only small and insignificant compared with the geological collapse that has already created the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, along with the ring of islands that make up the Greater and Lesser Antilles, which were once a range of mountains.  There is no doubt whatsoever that this subsidence in central America will continue with new tremors, new faults and new chasms appearing; it is even possible that the fault running up from Vermilion Bay is no more than a prelude to the reactivation of the tectonic process with its center in the Gulf of Mexico; and if that is the case we might well be witnesses to an enormous geological catastrophe in which nearly a fifth of the United States might end up as seabed.  But if that really is the case there is a certain likelihood that the ocean bed in the region of the Antilles will start to rise, or it could be somewhat further east where, according to the ancient legends, we might hope to find the sunken city of Atlantis.

            On the other hand, the scientist continued more reassuringly, we need not take seriously any fear of volcanic activity in the affected areas; these craters hurling mud into the air are nothing more than eruptions of natural gas which must have been under the Vermilion fault.  It wouldn't be at all surprising to find gigantic caverns of gas underneath the Mississippi Delta area, and these caverns of natural gas can explode when they come into contact with the air, hurling hundreds of thousands of tons of water and mud into the air as they do so.  But of course, before we can come to any definitive conclusions, Dr. W.R. Brownell repeated, we will need to obtain more data.

            While Dr. Brownell's geological observations on the catastrophe went to press, the governor of the state of Louisiana received this telegram from Fort Jackson:

 

regret loss of human life stop tried to miss your cities but didn't expect retreat of seawater and tidal wave after explosion stop found three hundred forty six human victims along entire coast stop offer condolences stop chief salamander stop hello fred dalton here fort jackson post office three newts just left who came in office ten minutes ago sent telegram holding pistol to my head but gone now vile monsters paid and ran back in water only doctors dog chased them shouldn't let those creatures free in city no other news send love to minnie lacoste fred dalton telegrapher

 

The governor of the state of Louisiana pored long over this telegram.  Some kind of joker, this Fred Dalton, I reckon, he finally said.  Best not to give this to the papers. 

 

8 - CHIEF SALAMANDER MAKES HIS DEMANDS

 

            Three days after the earthquake in Louisiana there was another geological catastrophe announced, this time in China.  The coast of the province of Kiangsu, north of Nanking, about half way between the mouth of the Yangtse and the old bed of the Hwangho, was ripped apart in a powerful, thunderous earthquake; the sea gushed into this fissure and joined up with the great lakes of Pan Yoon and Hungtsu between the cities of Hwaingan and Fugyang.  Apparently as a result of the earthquake, the Yangtse left its course below Nanking and flowed down towards Lake Tai and on to Hang-Cho.  Loss of human life cannot, so far, even be estimated.  Hundred of thousands of refugees are fleeing into the provinces to the north and south.  Japanese warships have been given orders to sail to the affected area.

            Although the earthquake in Kiangsu was far more extensive than the disaster in Louisiana it attracted little attention in the world press  because everyone was used to catastrophes happening in China and the loss of some million lives did not seem very important; and besides, it was scientifically clear that it was only a tectonic earthquake to do with the deep sea trench near the Riukiu and Philippine archipelagoes.  But three days later, seismographs in Europe registered new tremors centred somewhere near the Cape Verde Islands.  More detailed reports stated that the coast of Senegambia, south of St. Louis, had been hit by a serious earthquake.  A deep fissure appeared between Lampul and Mboro, allowing the sea to gush in through the Merinagh and as far as Wadi Dimar.  Eyewitnesses said that a column of fire and steam had erupted from the ground with a terrible noise, hurling sand and stones for miles around; and then there was the sound of the sea as it rushed into the gulf that had been opened up.  There was no significant loss of life.

            This third earthquake stirred up something akin to panic.  Were all the Earths volcanoes becoming active?  the papers asked.  The Earths crust is starting to break up, the popular press declared.  Specialists gave their opinion that the Senegambian gulley may have been no more than the result of a granite eruption by Mount Pico on the Cape Verde island of Fogo; this volcano had erupted as recently as 1847 but since then had been considered extinct.  In this case, the west African earthquake had nothing to do with seismic events in Louisiana and Kiangsu which were clearly tectonic in origin.  But nobody seemed to care whether the Earth was breaking up for tectonic reasons or volcanic.  The fact was that all the churches were filled to capacity that day and in some areas they had to stay open all night. 

            At one in the morning on the 20th. November, radio hams over most of Europe suffered serious interference to their reception, as if a new and exceptionally strong broadcaster was operating.  They located the interference at two hundred and three metres; it sounded something like the noise of machinery or rushing water; then the continuous, unchanging noise was suddenly interrupted by a horrible, rasping noise (everyone described it in the same way: a hollow, nasal, almost synthetic sounding voice, made all the more so by the electronic apparatus); and this frog-like voice called excitedly, "Hello, hello, hello!  Chief Salamander speaking.  Hello, chief Salamander speaking.  Stop all broadcasting, you men!  Stop your broadcasting!  Hello, Chief Salamander speaking!"  And then another, strangely hollow voice asked:  "Ready?"  "Ready."  There was a click as if the broadcast were being transferred to another speaker; and then another, unnaturally staccato voice called:  "Attention!  Attention!  Attention!"  "Hello!"  "Now!"

            A voice was heard in the quiet of the night; it was rasping and tired-sounding but still had the air of authority.  "Hello you people!  This is Louisiana.  This is Kiangsu.  This is Senegambia.  We regret the loss of human life.  We have no wish to cause you unnecessary harm.  We wish only that you evacuate those areas of coast which we will notify you of in advance.  If you do as we say you will avoid anything regrettable.  In future we will give you at least fourteen days notice of the places where we wish to extend our sea.  Incidents so far have been no more than technical experiments.  Your explosives have proved their worth.  Thank you for them. 

            "Hello you people!  Remain calm.  We wish you no harm.  We merely need more water, more coastline, more shallows