In the Clutch of the War-God Read online

  Produced by Roger Taft, grandson of the author, andJim Tinsley.

  In the Clutch of the War-God

  In three parts, from Physical Culture magazine, July - September, 1911.

  PART ONE

  In the Clutch of the War-God

  THE TALE OF THE ORIENT'S INVASION OF THE OCCIDENT, AS CHRONICLED INTHE HUMANICULTURE SOCIETY'S "HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY"

  By Milo Hastings

  FOREWORD: In this strange story of another day,the author has "dipped into the future" and viewedwith his mind's eye the ultimate effect ofAmerica's self-satisfied complacency, and herpersistent refusal to heed the lessons of Orientalprogress. I can safely promise the reader whotakes up this unique recital of the twentiethcentury warfare, that his interest will besustained to the very end by the interestingdeductions and the keen insight into thepossibilities of the present trend ofinternational affairs exhibited by theauthor.--Bernarr Macfadden.

  "Kindly be prepared to absent yourself at a moment's notice." It wasGoyu speaking, blundering, old fool. He was standing in the doorwaywith his kitchen-apron on, and an iron spoon in his hand.

  "What on earth is the matter?" asked Ethel Calvert, tossing asideher French novel in alarm, for such a lack of deference in Goyumeant vastly more than appeared upon the surface.

  "I am informed," replied Goyu, gravely, "that there has been ananti-foreign riot and that many are killed."

  "And father?" gasped Ethel.

  "He was upon the grain boat," said Goyu.

  "But where is he now?"

  "I do not know," returned Goyu, locking nervously over his shoulder."But I fear he has not fared well--the boat was dynamited--that'swhat started the trouble."

  With a gasp Ethel recalled that an hour before she had heard anexplosion which she had supposed to be blasting. Faint with fear,she staggered toward a couch and fell forward upon the cushions.

  * * *

  When the girl regained consciousness the house was dark. Slowly sherecalled the event that had culminated the uneventful day. Shewondered if Goyu had been lying or had gone crazy. The darkness wasnot reassuring--her father always came home before dark, and hisabsence now confirmed her fears. She wondered if the old servant haddeserted her. He was a poor stick anyway; Japanese men who had prideor character no longer worked as domestics in the households offoreigners.

  Ethel Calvert was the daughter of an American grain merchant whorepresented the interests of the North American Grain ExportersAssociation at the seaport of Otaru, in Hokaidi, the North Island ofJapan. Three years before her mother had died of homesickness and abroken heart--although the Japanese physician had called ittuberculosis, and had prescribed life in a tent! Had they notsuffered discomforts enough in that barbarous country without addinginsult to injury?

  Ethel was bountifully possessed of the qualities of hothouse beauty.Her jet black hair hung over the snowy skin of her temples instriking contrast. Her form was of a delicate slenderness and hermovement easy and graceful with just a little of that languidlistlessness considered as a mark of well-bred femininity. She knewthat she was beautiful according to the standards of her own peopleand her isolation from the swirl of the world's social life was toher gall and wormwood.

  The Calverts had never really "settled" in Japan, but had merelyremained there as homesick Americans indifferent to, or unjustlyprejudiced against the Japanese life about them. Now, in the year1958, the growing anti-foreign feeling among the Japanese had addedto their isolation. Moreover, the Japanese bore the grain merchantan especial dislike, for every patriotic Japanese was sore at heartover the fact that, after a century of modern progress, Japan wasstill forced to depend upon foreigners to supplement their foodsupply.

  In fact, they had oft heard Professor Oshima grieve over thestatistics of grain importation, as a speculator might mourn hispersonal losses in the stock market.

  * * *

  For a time Ethel lay still and listened to the faint sound of voicesfrom a neighboring porch. Then the growing horror of the situationcame over her with anewed force; if her father was dead, she was notonly alone in the world, but stranded in a foreign and an unfriendlycountry; for there were but few Americans left in the city.

  The girl arose and crept nervously into the dining-room. She turnedon the electric light; everything seemed in order. She hurried overto Goyu's room, and knocked. There was no answer. Then slowlyopening the door, she peered in--the room was empty and disordered.Plainly the occupant had bundled together his few belongings andflown.

  Ethel stole back through the silent house and tremblingly took downthe telephone receiver. In vain she called the numbers of the fewAmerican families of the city. Last on the list was the AmericanConsulate, and this time she received the curt information that theconsul had left the city by aeroplane "with the other foreigners."The phrase struck terror into her heart. If the European populationhad flown in such haste as to overlook her, clearly there wasdanger. A great fear grew upon her. Afraid to remain where she was,she tried to think of ways of escape. She could not steer anaeroplane even if she were able to obtain one. Otaru was far fromthe common ways of international traffic and the ships lying atanchor in the harbor were freighters, Japanese owned and Japanesemanned.

  Ethel looked at her watch--it was nine-twenty. She tiptoed to herroom.

  An hour later she was in the street dressed in a tailored suit ofAmerican make and carrying in her hand-bag a few trinkets andvaluables she had found in the house. Passing hurriedly throughquiet avenues, she was soon in the open country. The road shefollowed was familiar to her, as she had traveled it many times byauto.

  For hours she walked rapidly on. Her unpracticed muscles grew tiredand her feet jammed forward in high-heeled shoes were blistered andsore. But fear lent courage and as the first rays of the morning sunpeeked over the hill-tops, the refugee reached the outskirts of thecity of Sapporo.

  Ethel made straightway for the residence of Professor Oshima, theSoil Chemist of the Imperial Agricultural College of Hokiado--aJapanese gentleman who had been educated and who had married abroad,and a close friend of her father's. As she reached the door of theProfessor's bungalow, she pushed the bell, and sank exhausted uponthe stoop.

  Some time afterward she half-dreamed and half realized that shefound herself neatly tucked between white silk sheets and lying on afloor mattress of a Japanese sleeping-porch. A gentle breeze fannedher face through the lattice work and low slanting sunbeams siftingin between the shutters fell in rounded blotches upon the oppositestraw matting wall. For a time she lay musing and again fell asleep.

  When she next awakened, the room was dimly lighted by a littleglowing electric bulb and Madame Oshima was sitting near her. Herhostess greeted her cordially and offered her water and some freshfruit.

  Madame Oshima was fully posted upon the riots and confirmed Ethel'sfears as to the fate of her father.

  "But have I lost my figure?" inquired the litheMadame Oshima.]

  "You will be safe here for the present," her hostess assured her."Professor Oshima has been called to Tokio; when he returns we willsee what can be done concerning your embarking for America."

  Madame Oshima was of French descent but had fully adopted Japanesecustoms and ways of thinking.

  As soon as Ethel was up and about, her hostess suggested that sheexchange her American-made clothing for the Japanese costume of thetime. But Ethel was inclined to rebel.

  "Why," she protested, "if I discarded my corsets I would lose myfigure."

  "But have I lost my figure?" inquired the lithe Madame Oshima,striking an attitude.

  To this Ethel did not reply, but continued, "And I would look like aman," for among the Jap
anese people tight-belted waists and floppingskirts had long since been replaced by the kimo, a single-piecegarment worn by both sexes and which fitted the entire body withcomfortable snugness.

  "And is a man so ill-looking?" asked her companion, smiling.

  "Why, no, of course not, only he's different. Why, I couldn't wear akimo--people would see--my limbs," stammered the properly-bredAmerican girl.

  "Why, no, they couldn't," replied Madame Oshima. "Not if you keepyour kimo on."

  "But they would see my figure."

  "Well, I thought you just said that was what you were afraid theywouldn't see."

  "But I don't mean that way--they--they could see the shape of my--mylegs," said Ethel, blushing crimson.

  "Are you ashamed that your body has such vulgar parts?" returned theolder woman.

  "No, of course not," said Ethel, choking back her embarrassment."But it's wicked for a girl to let men know such things."

  "Oh, they all know it," replied Madame Oshima, "they learn it inschool."

  At this the highly strung Ethel burst into sobs.

  "There, there now," said her companion, regretting that she hadspoken sarcastically. "I forget that I once had such ideas also.We'll talk some more about it after while. You are nervous andworried now and must have more rest."

  The next day Madame Oshima more tactfully approached the subject andshowed her protege that while in Rome it was more modest to do asthe Romans do; and that, moreover, it was necessary for her own goodand theirs that she attract as little attention as possible, and tothose that recognized her Caucasian blood appear, superficially, atleast, as a naturalized citizen of Japan.

  So, amid blushes and tears, protestations and laughter, Ethelaccepted the kimo, or one-piece Japanese garment, and the outerflowing cloak to be worn on state occasions when freedom of bodilymovement was not required. Her feather-adorned hat was discardedaltogether and her ill-shapen high-heeled boots replaced by airyslippers of braided fiber.

  Her rather short stature and her hair--which fortunately enough wasblack--served to lessen her conspicuousness, especially when dressedin the fashion followed by Japanese girls; and with the leaving offof the use of cosmetics and the spending of several hours a day inthe flower garden even her pallid complexion suffered rapid change.

  It was about a fortnight before Professor Oshima returned fromTokio. Upon his arrival Ethel at once pleaded with him to be sent toAmerica, but the scientist slowly shook his head.

  "It is too late," he said; "there is going to be a war."

  Thus it happened that Ethel Calvert was retained in the Professor'sfamily as a sort of English tutor to his children, and introduced asa relative of his wife, and no one suspected that she was one of thehated Americans.

  * * *

  The trouble between Japan and the United States dated back to theearly part of the century. It was deep-seated and bitter, and wasnot only the culmination of a rivalry between the leading nations ofthe great races of mankind, but a rivalry between two great ideas orpolicies that grew out in opposite directions from the age ofunprecedented mechanical and scientific progress that marked thedawn of the twentieth century.

  The pages of history had been turned rapidly in those years. TheUnited States, long known as the richest country, had also becomethe most populous nation of the Caucasian world--and wealth andpopulation had made her vain.

  But with all her material glory, there was not strength in Americansinews, nor endurance in her lungs, nor vigor in the product of herloins. Her people were herded together in great cities, where theyslept in gigantic apartment houses, like mud swallows in a sandbank. They overate of artificial food that was made in greatfactories. They over-dressed with tight-fitting unsanitary clothingmade by the sweated labor of the diseased and destitute. Theyover-drank of old liquors born of ancient ignorance and of newconcoctions born of prostituted science. They smoked and perfumedand doped with chemicals and cosmetics--the supposed virtues ofwhich were blazoned forth on earth and sky day and night.

  The wealth of the United States was enormous, yet it was chiefly inthe hands of the few. The laborers went forth from their rookeriesby subway and monorail, and served their shifts in the mills ofindustry.

  In turn, others took their places, and the mills ground night andday.

  Even the farm lands had been largely taken over by corporatecontrol. Crops on the plains were planted with power machinery. Therough lands had all been converted into forests or game preservesfor the rich. Agriculture had been developed as a science, but notas a husbandry. The forcing system had been generally applied toplants and animals. Wonder-working nitrogenous fertilizers made atNiagara and by the wave motors of the coast made all vegetation togrow with artificial luxury. Corn-fed hogs and the rotund carcassesof stall-fed cattle were produced on mammoth ranches for theedification of mankind, and fowl were hatched by the billions inhuge incubators, and the chicks reared and slaughtered with scarcelya touch of a human hand. And all this was under the control ofconcentrated business organization. The old, sturdy, wasteful farmerclass had gone out of existence.

  Only the rich who owned aeroplanes could afford to live in thecountry. The poor had been forced to the cities where they could besheltered _en masse_, and fed, as it were, by machinery. New Yorkhad a population of twenty-three millions. Manhattan Island had beenextended by filling in the shallows of the bay, until the Batteryreached almost to Staten Island. The aeroplane stations that toppedher skyscrapers stood, many of them, a quarter of a mile from theground.

  As the materially greatest nation in the world, the United Stateshad an enormous national patriotism based on vanity. The largerpatriotism for humanity was only known in the prattle of herpreachers and idealists. America was the land of liberty--andliberty had come to mean the right to disregard the rights ofothers.

  In Japan, too, there had been changes, but Japan had received thegifts of science in a far different spirit. With her, science hadbeen made to serve the more ultimate needs of the race, rather thanthe insane demand for luxuries.

  The Japanese had applied to the human species the scientificprinciples of heredity, nutrition and physical development, which inAmerica had been confined to plants and animals. The old spirit ofJapanese patriotism had grown into a semi-religious worship ofracial fitness and a moral pride developed which eulogized thesacrifice of the liberties of the individual to the larger needs ofthe people. Legal restrictions of the follies of fashion in dressand food, the prohibition of alcohol and narcotics, the restrictionof unwise marriages, and the punishments of immorality werestoically accepted, not as the blue laws of religious fanaticism,but as requisites of racial progress and a mark of patriotism.

  And while Japan showed no signs of the extravagant wealth seen inAmerica, she was far from being poor. She had gained little fromcentralized and artificial industry, but she had wasted less ininsane competition and riotous luxury.

  But in Japanese life there was one unsolved problem. That was herfood supply. Intensive culture would do wonders and the justadministration of wealth and the physical efficiency of her peoplehad eliminated the waste of supporting the non-productive, but anacre is but a small piece of land at most, and Japan had long sincepassed the point where the number of her people exceeded the numberof her acres. A quarter of an acre would produce enough grain andcoarse vegetables to keep a man alive, but the Japanese wanted eggsand fruit and milk for their children; and they wanted cherry treesand chrysanthemums, lotus ponds and shady gardens with littlewaterfalls.

  In the nineteenth month of the war, the emblem of theRising Sun was hoisted over Manila.]

  Now if the low birth rate that had resulted when the examinationsfor parenthood were first enforced had continued, Japan would nothave been so crowded, but after the first generation of marriagerestriction the percentage of those who reached the legal standardof fitness was naturally increased. The scientists and officials hadfrom time to time considered the advisability of increasing therestrictions--
and yet why should they? The Japanese people hadsubmitted to the prohibition of the marriage of the unfit, but theyloved children; and, with their virile outdoor life, the instinct ofprocreation was strong within them. True, the assignable lands inJapan continued to grow smaller, but what reason was there forstifling the reproductive instincts of a vigorous people in a greatunused world half populated by a degenerate humanity?

  So Japan was land hungry--not for lands to conquer, as of old, noryet for lands to exploit commercially, but for food and soil andbreathing space for her children.

  Among opponents of Japanese racial expansion, the United States wasthe greatest offender. Japanese immigration had long since beenforbidden by the United States, and American diplomats had morerecently been instrumental in bringing about an agreement among thepowers of Europe by which all outlets were locked against theoverflowing stream of Asiatic population.

  Indeed, America called Japan the yellow peril; and with her ownprejudices to maintain, her institutions of graft and exploitationto fatten her luxury-loving lords and her laborers to appease, shewas in mortal terror of the simple efficiency of the Japanese peoplewho had taken the laws of Nature into their own hands and shapedhuman evolution by human reason.

  As Commodore Perry had forced the open door of commerce upon Japan acentury before, so Japan decided to force upon America theacknowledgment of any human being's right to live in any land onearth. She had tried first by peaceful means to secure these ends,but failing here and driven on by the lash of her own necessity,Japan had come to feel that force alone could break the clannishresistance of the Anglo-Saxon, who having gone into the four cornersof the earth and forced upon the world his language, commerce andcustoms, now refused to receive ideas or citizens in return.

  And thus it came to pass that the West and the East were in theclutch of the War-God. No one knew just what the war would be like,for the wars of the last century had been bluffing, bulldozingaffairs concerning trade agreements or Latin-American revolutions.There had been no great clash of great ideas and great peoples.

  The harbors of the world were filled with huge, floating,flat-topped battleships, within the capacious interiors of whichwere packed the parts of aeroplanes as were the soldiers of theGrecian army in their wooden horse at Troy, for assembling andlaunching them. But the engines of warfare which men had repeatedlyclaimed would make war so terrible as to end war, had failed tofulfill anticipations. The means of defense and the rules of thegame had kept pace with the means of destruction. The flat tops ofthe warships, which served as alighting platforms for friendlyplanes, were heavily armored against missiles dropped fromunfriendly ones. The explosion of a bomb on top of a plate of steelis a rather tame affair, and guns sufficient to penetrate armorplate could not be carried on air-craft. The big guns ofbattleships, which had for a time grown bigger and bigger, had nowgone quite out of use, for the coming of the armored top had beenfollowed by the toad-stool warship, which had a roof like aninverted saucer, and was provided with water chambers, the openingof the traps of which caused a sudden sinking of the vessel untilthe eave dipped beneath the water level and left exposed only thesloping roof from which the heaviest shot would glance like a bulletfrom the frozen surface of a pond.

  The first two years of war dragged on in the Pacific. American grainwas of course cut off from Japan and the government authoritiesordered the people to plow up their flower gardens and plant foodcrops.

  The Americans had too much territory to protect to take theoffensive and their Pacific fleet lay close to Manila, where, withthe help of land aviation forces, they hoped to hold the possessionof the islands, which according to the popular American view wassupposed to be the prize for which the Japanese had gone to war.

  The test of the actual warfare proved several things upon whichmankind had long been in doubt. One of these was that, with all theexpert mechanism that science and invention had supplied, thepersonal equation of the man could not be eliminated. Aviationincreased the human element in warfare. To shoot straight requirescalm nerves, but to fly straight requires also agility andendurance.

  The American aeroplanes were made of steel and aluminum, and whenthey hit the water they sank like lead, but the Japanese planes weremade of silk and bamboo, and their engines were built with multiplecompartment air tanks and after a battle the Japanese picked up thefloating engines and placed them, ready to use, in inexpensive newplanes.

  * * *

  In the nineteenth month of the war, Manila surrendered, and theemblem of the rising sun was hoisted throughout the PhilippineIslands. The remnant of the American fleet retreated across thePacific, and the world supposed that the war was over.

  But Japan refused the American proposals of peace, which concededthem the Philippines, unless the United States be also opened touniversal immigration. And so it was that when Japan, in addition toaccepting the Philippines, demanded the right to settle her cheaplabor in the United States, the American authorities cut short thepeace negotiation and began concentrating troops and battleshipsalong the Pacific Coast in fear of an invasion of California.

  * * *

  With Ethel Calvert's adoption into Professor Oshima's family therecame a great change in her life. At first, she accepted Japanesefood and Japanese clothes as the old-time prisoner accepted stripesand bread and water. But her captivity proved less repulsive thanshe expected and she was soon confessing to herself that there wasmuch good in Japanese life. Professor and Madame Oshima were nottalkative on general topics but the books on the shelves of theProfessor's library proved a godsend to the awakening mind of theyoung woman. Indeed, after a mental diet of French and Englishfiction upon which Ethel had been reared, the works on science andhumaniculture, the dreams of universal brotherhood, the epics of arace in its conquests of disease and poverty were as meat and drinkto her eager, hungry mind.

  As the war went on, the horror of it all grew upon her. She readHowki's "America." She didn't believe it all, but she realized thatmost of it was true. She wondered why her people were fighting tokeep out the Japanese. She marvelled that the Japanese who hadadopted such lofty ideals of race culture could find the heart to goto war. She wished she might be free to go to the governmentofficials at Tokio and Washington to show them the folly of it all.Surely if the American statesmen understood Japanese ideals and thesuperiority of their habits and customs for the production of happyhuman beings, they would never have waged war to keep them out ofthe States.

  * * *

  "In three days we leave Japan," said Professor Oshima, as he satdown to dinner one evening in the early part of April, 1960.

  "All?" asked Komoru, the Professor's secretary.

  "We four," replied Oshima, indicating those at the table, "thechildren will stay with my mother. I'll need your assistance, and asfor Miss Ethel, she cannot well stay here, so I have had you twolisted. Although it's a little irregular, I am sure it will not bequestioned, for I know more about American soils than any other manin Japan."

  Ethel glanced apprehensively at Komoru. She had never quiteunderstood her own attitude toward that taciturn young Japanese whomshe had seen daily for two years without hardly making hisacquaintance. She admired him and yet she feared him.

  Professor Oshima was saying that she had been "listed" with Komorufor some great journey. What did it mean? What could she do? Againshe looked up at the secretary; but far from seeing any trace ofscheme or plot in his enigmatical countenance, she found him to beconsidering the situation with the same equanimity with which hewould have recorded the calcium content of a soil sample.

  As for Professor and Madame Oshima, they seemed equally unruffledabout the proposed journey, and not at all inclined to elucidate themystery. Experience had taught the younger woman that wheninformation was not offered it was unwise to ask questions, so whenthe Professor busied himself with much ransacking of his pamphletsand papers and his wife became equally occupied with overhauling thefamily wardrobe a
nd getting the children off to their grandmother's,Ethel accepted unquestionably the statement that she would belimited to twenty kilograms of clothing and ten kilograms of otherpersonal effects, and lent assistance as best she could to theenterprise in hand.

  On the third day the little party, with their light luggage boardeda train for Hakodate, at which point they arrived at noon. Hurryingalong the docks among others burdened like themselves, they came toa great low-lying, turtle-topped warship; and, passing down agangway, entered the brilliantly lighted interior.

  The constant flood of new passengers came, not in mixed and motleygroups, as the ordinary crowd of passengers, but by two, male andfemale, as the unclean beasts into the ark. And they were all youngin years and athletic in frame--the very cream and flower of therace.

  Every few seconds an aeroplane shot into the air andjoined the endless winged line.]

  Late that evening the vessel steamed out of port, and during thenext two days was joined by a host of other war craft, and the greatsquadron moved in orderly procession to the eastward.

  One point, that Ethel soon discovered was that, in addition to beingexcellent physical specimens, all the men, and many of the women,were proficient as aviators. Of these facts life on board bore ampleevidence, for the great fan ventilated gymnasium was the mostconspicuous part of the ship's equipment and here in regular drillsand in free willed disportive exercise those on board keptthemselves from stagnation during the idleness of the voyage. Intothis gymnasium work Ethel entered with great gusto, for there was arevelation in the discovery of her own physical capabilities thatsurprised and fascinated her.

  In the other chief interest of her fellow passengers, Ethel was anapt pupil, for though woefully ignorant of aviation, she was eagerto learn. She spent many hours in the company of Professor or MadameOshima, studying aeroplane construction and operation from thedisplayed mechanisms on board. In fact, they found the great roomyhold of the ship was packed with aeroplane parts. Small gasolineturbines were stored in crates by the hundreds; also wings andrudders knocked down and laid flat against each other and stilllower down in the framework of the floating palace were vast storesof gasoline.

  At the end of two weeks the Japanese squadron was in latitude 34?north, longitude 125? west, and headed directly for the Los Angelesdistrict of Southern California--the richest and most denselypopulated area of the United States.

  One evening, just at dark, after they had been in sight of theAmerican aerial scouts all day, the Japanese fleet changed itscourse and turned sharply to the southward. Now Panama was six days'steaming from Los Angeles and less than three days from New Orleans.So the authorities at Washington ordered all warships and availablesoldiers on the Gulf Coast to embark for the Isthmus.

  Meanwhile there was much going on beneath the armor plate of theJapanese transports, and on the fourth day of their southwardmovement the great trap doors were swung down and aeroplane partswere run out on the tramways, the planes rapidly set up by skilledworkmen, and firmly hooked to the floor. Above and below deck theystood in great rows like lines of automobiles in a garage.

  Towards sundown the forward planes were manned and in quicksuccession shot down the runways and took to the air. Ethel and hercompanions were below air the time and hardly knew what was goingon. Their luggage had been taken up some time ago, except for anextra kima, which they had been ordered to put on. In their turnthey were now called out and ordered to go above, that is, the namesof the men were called and Ethel knew that she was listed as MadameKomoru, a thing that made her shiver every time it was brought toher attention.

  An exclamation or astonishment escaped the lips of the moreimpulsive American girl as she came on deck; for as far as the eyecould see the gray flat tops of the war vessels were covered withthe drab-winged planes, while every few seconds a plane shot intothe air and joined an endless winged line that stretched away to thenortheast.

  "Komoru eighty-five: Oshima eighty-six."

  The intent of that command was clear and Ethel was soon settledimmediately behind the young secretary in the little bamboo car of aJapanese plane-of-war.

  The propeller started with a shrill musical hum; they raced down therunway; dipped for a second toward the water; rose, and sailedswiftly up and on toward the dark line of Mexico, that lay in theevening shadow cast by the curved surface of the Pacific Ocean.

  (To be continued.)