PART TWO.
Synopsis of Previous Installment: In the year 1958, Ethel Calvert, a daughter of an American grain-merchant, residing in Japan, because of her father's death in an anti-foreign riot, is forced to take refuge with Madame Oshima, the French wife of a Japanese scientist. She becomes accustomed to the mode of living followed by the Japanese, and is finally persuaded to adopt the costume of the land of her exile. War is declared between Japan and the United States, and Professor Oshima, and Komoru, his Secretary, together with Madame Oshima and Ethel Calvert, sail for United States in a Japanese war vessel. When near the Pacific Coast, the many men and women who have been passengers on the vessel, leave the ship by means of aeroplanes, and sail eastwardly over Southern California.
The air cut by Ethel's face at a ninety-mile gait, and she gripped nervously at the hand-rails of the car. Then, regaining confidence, she began to drink in the novel view about her. Ahead were the drab-winged aeroplanes growing smaller and smaller until they became mere specks against the darkening sky. She turned to the rear and watched the myriads of humans, like birds, rising from the transports that still lay in the sunshine. There were literally thousands of them. She wondered if human eyes had ever before witnessed so marvelous a sight.
They had come over the mainland of Mexico now and were flying at a height of about half a mile. Shrouded in the tropical twilight, the landscape below was but dimly discernible. As the darkness came on, Ethel discovered that a small light glowed from the side of the car in front of the driver. Gripping the hand-rail, she made bold to raise herself; and, stopping beneath the searchlight and machine-gun that hung, one beneath the other, on swivels in the center of the framework, she peered forward over Komoru's shoulder.
The taciturn steersman turned and smiled but said nothing. Ethel noted carefully the equipment of the driver's box. It was a duplicate throughout of the dummy steering gear with which she had practiced in the ship's gymnasium. One conspicuous addition, however, was an object illuminated by the small glow lamp that had attracted her attention. This proved to be chart or map mounted at either end on short rollers. As the girl watched it, she perceived that it moved slowly. A red line was drawn across the map and hovering over this was the tip of a metal pointer. A compass and a watch were mounted at one side of the chart case.
Ethel watched the chart creep back on its rollers and reasoned that the pointer indicated the location of the aeroplane. She wondered how the movement of the chart was regulated with that of the plane. Finally she decided to ask Komoru.
"By the landmarks and the time," he said. "Do you see that blue coming in on the northeast corner of the map?"
"Yes."
"Well, watch it."
After a few minutes of waiting the words "Gulf of Mexico" rolled out upon the chart. "Why, that can't be," said Ethel, "we just left the Pacific Ocean."
"But we have crossed the Isthmus of Tehauntepec," replied Komoru; "it is only a hundred miles wide."
His companion looked over the side of the car and to the front and. to the right, she could see by the perfectly flat horizon that they were approaching water.
"The map is unrolling too fast," said Komoru, as the pointer stood over the edge of the indicated water—and he pushed back the little lever on the clock mechanism that rolled the chart. "We have a little head wind," he added.
Ethel resumed her seat and sat musing for a half hour or so. Komoru looked around and called to her.
"Look over to your left," he said. "The lights of Vera Cruz. We are making better time now," he added, again adjusting the regulator on the clock work.
The driver contemplated his compass carefully and shifted his course a few points to the right. Ethel settled in her bamboo cage and pulled her aviation cap down tightly to shield her face and ears from the wind pressure.
For hours they sat so—the girl's heart throbbing with awe, wonder and fear; the man unemotional and silent, a steady, firm hand on the wheel, his feet on the engine controls and his goggled eyes glancing critically at compass or watch or out into the starlit waste of the night, disturbed only by the whirl and shadow of other planes which with varying speed passed or were passed, as the aerial host rushed onward. There were only small tail lights, one above and one below the main plane, to warn following drivers against collision.
With her head bent low upon her knees, Ethel at length fell into a doze. She was aroused by Komoru's calling, and straightening up with a start, she arose and leaned forward over the driver. Komoru was looking intently at the scroll chart. In a moment she designed the cause of his interest, for there had rolled across the forward surface of the chart the outline of a coast.
In the far left-hand corner was marked the city of Galveston, and to the right was the Sabine River that forms the boundary between Texas and Louisiana. Ethel raised her eyes from the map and looked far out to the Northwest. Sure enough, she discerned the lights of a city at the point where Galveston was indicated by the chart.
"How far have we come?" she asked in astonishment.
"Eight hundred miles," replied Komoru. "See, it is nearly two-thirty. The first men with the faster planes were to have arrived at one o'clock."
A little later they passed over the dimly discernible coast line, some thirty or forty miles to the east of Galveston. Komoru carefully consulted his compass, watch and aneroid, and made a slight change in his course.
"Where do we land?" asked the girl.
Komoru steadied the wheel with one hand; and, reaching into the breast pocket of his aviator's jacket, he produced a little document-like roll. "These are the orders," he explained, and asked Ethel to spread out the papers on the chart case.
The instruction sheet read:
"Fly twenty-eight minutes beyond the coast line, which will place you ten or twenty miles northwest of the town of Beaumont, where a fire of some sort will be lighted about 3 a.m.
"When you alight locate one or more farm houses and attach one of the enclosed notices to the door.
"This done, fly toward the Beaumont signal fire and assist in subduing the town and capturing all petroleum works in the region.
"At 6 a.m., if petroleum works are safe, follow the lead of the red plane and fly northwest as far as Fort Worth, returning by nightfall to oil region."
Ethel read the paper over and over as she held it down out of the wind by the dim glow lamp. She wanted to ask questions. She wondered what was expected of her. She wondered again as to what was expected of the entire invasion and why the women had been brought along. But her questions did not find verbal expression, for she had schooled herself to await developments.
The roller chart had now come to a stop and showed the red line that marked their course terminating in a cross to the northwest of the town of Beaumont. Komoru tilted the plane downward and flew for a time near the earth. Then checking the speed, he ran it lightly aground in an open field a little distance from a clump of buildings.
The driver got out and stretched his cramped limbs. Taking a hand glow lamp he ran carefully over the mechanism of the plane. Then he opened a locker and took out two small magazine pistols. One he handed to Ethel.
"Don't use it," he said, "until you have to."
"Will you go with me?" he asked, "to tack the poster, or will you stay with the plane?"
"I'll stay here," she replied.
Komoru walked off rapidly towards the house. Presently the stillness was interrupted by the vociferous barking of a dog; Then there was a sound as of some one picking a taut wire and the voice of the dog curdled in a final yelp.
In a few minutes Komoru was back. "Dogs are no good," he said; "they produce nothing but noise."
"Will you kindly get aboard, Miss Ethel? There is much to do."
Ethel obeyed; meanwhile Komoru inspected the surface of the ground for a few yards in front of the plane. Returning he climbed into his seat and started the engine. They arose without mishap.
Within a mile or two, Komoru picked out another farm house and made a landing nearby.
"I will go with you this time," said Ethel courageously.
Approaching an American residence, Ethel suddenly found herself conscious of the fact that she was dressed in a most unladylike Japanese kimo. For a moment the larger sentiments of the occasion were replaced by the womanly query, "What will people say?" Then she laughed inwardly at the absurdity of her thought.
Komoru produced the roll from his pocket and unwound a small cloth poster. This he fastened to the door jam by pressing in the thumb tacks that were sewed in the hem. Then noting another white blotch on the opposite side of the door, he carefully shielded his lamp, and made a light. It was a duplicate of the notice he had just fastened up and read:
WARNING
"Two hundred thousand Japanese have invaded Texas and are desirous of possessing your property. You are respectfully requested to depart immediately and apply to your government for property elsewhere. All buildings not vacated within twenty-four hours will be promptly burned—unless displaying a flag truce for sufficient reason. Kindly co-operate with us in avoiding bloodshed.
(Signed) The Japanese People."
"We were late," said Komoru as they walked back toward the plane. "Two hundred thousand," he mused; "what you call 'bluff,' I guess."
"It's growing light," said Ethel, as they reached the plane.
"Yes, a little," replied Komoru, as he walked around to the front. "An ugly ditch," he said. "We shall have to use the helicopter."
Taking his seat he threw down a lever and what had appeared to be two small superimposed planes above the main plane assumed the form of flat screws. Letting the engine gain full headway, Komoru threw the clutch on this shafting, and the vertical screws started revolving in opposite directions with a great downward rush of air. The whole apparatus tilted a bit, and then slowly but steadily arose.
When they had reached altitude of a hundred feet or so, the driver shifted the power to the quieter horizontal propeller and the plane sidled off like an eagle dropping from a crag.
Tilting the plane upward, Komoru circled for altitude. Presently he called back over his shoulder, saying that he saw the signal fire at Beaumont at the same time heading the plane in that direction.
As the dawn began to break in the East, the occasional passing lights of flying planes became less bright and soon the planes themselves stood out against the sky like shadows. And then the whole majestic train of aerial invaders became visible as they poured over the southern horizon—-a never ending stream.
Komoru and Ethel landed in a meadow already well filled with planes and following the others, hurried along toward the town.
There had been some fighting in the streets and a few buildings were burning. Walking along to the main street of the town, they came upon a crowd of Japanese who were collected in front of a building from which the contents were being dragged hastily.
"What is it?" asked Komoru of one of the men.
"Hardware store," replied the other; "we've rifled all of them for the weapons and explosives."
"Where are all the people?" asked Ethel. "The Americans—are they killed or captured?"
"They are at home in their houses," answered the man, who seemed well posted. "I was with the first squad to arrive. We captured the policemen and then took the telephone switchboard. Japanese operators are in there now. They have called up every one in town and explained the situation, and advised the people to stay indoors, telling them that every house would be burned from which people emerged or shots were fired. The operators are working on the rural numbers yet. We hold the telegraph also, and are sending out exaggerated reports of the size of the Japanese invasion."
A man wearing a blue sash came hurrying up. He stopped before the group at the hardware store and gestured for silence.
"The town is well in hand," he said, "and only those of you who are detailed here as guards need remain longer; the others will get back to their planes and await the rise of their designated leaders for the flights of the day.
"Come," said Komoru to his companion. But Ethel did not move. Her mind was racked with perplexity. Here she was in a city of her own people. Why should she continue to accompany this young Japanese whom, despite his gentlemanly conduct, she instinctively feared? Yet what else could she do? She was dressed in the peculiar attire of the invaders, and would certainly have trouble in convincing an American of her identity.
"I must ask you to hurry," said Komoru, as the others moved off. With an effort Ethel gathered her wavering emotions in hand and went with him. If she must go, she reasoned it were well not to arouse Komoru's suspicion of her loyalty.
A few minutes later they were again in the air, following the lead of a plane with bright red wings—the flag-ship, as it were, of the group.
In a half hour the expedition was approaching Houston. Coming over the city, the leader circled high and waited until his followers were better massed.
"Are we going to attack the town?" inquired Ethel, as Komoru asked her for the water-bottle.
"Oh, no," he replied, "nothing of the sort; we are simply bluffing. There are a number of expeditions going out to-day. We must make the appearance of a great invasion."
"How many planes are there all told?"
Komoru smiled. "Not so many," he said.
"But how many?" persisted Ethel.
"Fifteen thousand, maybe," Komoru replied.
"To invade a country with nearly two hundred million inhabitants! We will surely all be killed."
Komoru smiled.
"By sheer force of numbers," explained Ethel.
"Wait and see," replied her enigmatical companion.
For hours the little aerial squadron sailed through the balmy air of Texas. They passed over Austin and Waco and Fort Worth and Dallas. They turned eastward and passed over Texarkana, and thence south to impress the people of Shreveport.
The excitement evinced in the towns increased as the news of their flight was wired ahead. They were frequently shot at by groups of excited citizens or occasional companies of militia, but at the height and speed at which they were flying the bullets went wide. One plane was lost. Something must have snapped. It doubled up and went tumbling downward like a wounded pigeon.
The sun was dropping toward the western horizon. The invaders had been flying for ten hours. They had been without food or sleep for thirty-six hours. Save for the brief relaxation of the morning, Komoru had not taken his hands from the steering wheel, nor his foot from the engine control since the previous sunset in the Bay of Tehauntepec.
As they passed near other planes, Ethel noted that in many cases the women were driving. Notwithstanding her dislike for him, the girl found herself wishing that she could relieve Komoru.
She pondered over his "wait and see" and began to discern a new possibility in an invasion of thirty thousand Japanese. She tried to imagine one of the society favorites of her Chicago girlhood sitting in front of her driving that plane. She remembered distinctly that aeroplane racing was a part of the diversion of such men and that five or six hours of driving was considered quite a feat.
The more she considered the man before her, the more she marvelled at his powers. She confessed he interested her; she wondered why she disliked him. The only answer that seemed acceptable was that he was "not her kind."
Towards dusk, they hove in sight of the derricks of the Beaumont oil region. The leader with the red plane descended in a large meadow. Komoru was well to the front and brought his plane to earth a few meters from the red wings. The man in the flag plane who had that day led them over a thousand miles and a score of cities got out and stretched himself. With an exclamation of joyful surprise, Ethel recognized that he was Professor Oshima.
The Japanese camped where they were for the night. The wings of the planes were guyed to the ground with cordage and little steel stakes. Beneath such improvised tents the tired aerial cavalrymen rolled themselves in their sleeping blankets and for twelve hours the camp was as quiet as a graveyard.
That day had been a great day in history; it was the first consequential aerial invasion that the world had ever known. While the arrivals of the morning had been circling in fear-inspiring flights above the neighboring states, the later starters from the Japanese squadron had continued to arrive in the oil regions. Like migrating birds, they settled down over the rich fields and grazing lands of that wonderful strip of flat, black-soiled prairie that stretches westward from the south center of Louisiana until it emerges into the great semi-arid cattle plains of southern Texas.
The region, though one of the richest in the United States, was but sparsely settled. Save for the few thousand white laborers who were supported by the oil industry, the whole resident population were negroes who were worked under imported white foremen in the rice and truck lands of the region.
The negroes were panic stricken by the Japanese invasion and made practically no resistance. In two or three days, the country for a forty-mile radius around Beaumont was cleared of Americans and practically the entire oil region of Texas with its vast storage tanks at Port Arthur on the Sabine River, were in the hands of the invaders.
There were not ten regiments of American soldiers within five hundred miles. The great mass of the American army had been rushed weeks before to southern California, and the remnant left in the Gulf region had more recently been hastened to Panama. In fact, the American squadron had steamed into Colon on the very morning the Japanese alighted on Texas soil.
On the second morning of their arrival, Japanese officials circling above the captured region, roughly allotted the land to Captains under whose leadership were a hundred planes each. The captains then assigned each couple places to stake their plane, which were located a hundred meters apart, allowing to each about two and a half acres of land.
Professor Oshima and Komoru, as soil chemists, were constantly on the go making studies of the land and advising with the other experts as to the crops to plant, and the methods of tillage for the various locations.
In the cotton lands, where Ethel and her associates were located, the soil was immediately put to a fuller use. The cotton plants were thinned and pruned and between the rows quick growing vegetables were planted. Elsewhere the great pastures were broken up with captured kerosene-driven gang plows and by dint of hard labor the sod was quickly reduced to a fit state for intensive cultivation.
The outside work of the professor and his secretary threw Ethel altogether in the company of Madame Oshima. For this fact she was very grateful, as her aversion to Komoru, to whom she was nominally bound, grew more and more a source of worry and fear. So the two women of Aryan blood worked together in the cotton field side by side with the Orientals—worked and waited and wondered what was awing in the surrounding world.
The gasoline wagons came around and refilled the fuel tanks of the planes. Mechanics inspected the engines carefully and replaced defective parts. The rice cakes and soyu brought from Japan, had been replaced by a diet of wheat and maize products and fresh fruits and vegetables taken from the captured stores and gardens. Such captured foods, however, had all been inspected by the dieteticians, and those of doubtful wholesomeness destroyed or placed under lock and key to be used only as a last resort.
Thus weeks passed. The green things of Japanese planting had poked their tender shoots through the black American soil. There had been no fighting except in few cases, where a company of foolhardy militia or a local posse had tried to attach the Japanese outposts. American aeroplanes had wisely staid away.
But the fight was yet to come. The Federal Government had recalled its ships from Panama and was bringing back the soldiers from California. On the great flat prairie between Galveston and Houston, a mighty military camp was being established. Aeroplane sheds were erected and repair shops built. Long lines of army tents were pitched in close proximity. Army canteens were established that the thirsty soldiers might get pure liquor and good tobacco and a few rods away—over the line—other grog shops were opened wherein were sold similar goods not so guaranteed. Gambling sharks arrived and set up shell games and bedraggled prostitutes—outcasts from urban centers of debauchery—-came and camped nearby and made night hideous with their obscene revelry.
So the American soldier prepared for battle against the enemy who, fifty miles away, slept undisturbed in the midst of gardens beneath the wings of their aeroplanes.
Never since Roman phalanx moved against the hordes of disorganized barbarians had such extremes of method in warfare been pitted against each other. Indeed it is doubtful if the invasion of the Japanese should be called war at all. They were not blood-thirsty. In fact, the Japanese invaders had sent word to the American Government asserting their peaceful intentions if they were unmolested, though threatening dire vengeance by firing cities and poisoning water supplies if they were attacked.
Madame Oshima shook her head. "Such talk is only pretense," she said, "the Japanese intend to live in America and would never so embitter the people—and it will not be necessary."
Ethel was in doubt. She pictured the Japanese planes flying above the unprotected inland cities dropping conflagration bombs upon shingled roof or casks of prussic acid into open reservoirs. She wished she were out of it all. She wanted to escape and yet she knew not how.
The Americans made no hasty attacks. They feared the threats of the Japanese and awaited the gathering of many hundred thousand soldiers. At the end of four weeks the American army was spread in a giant semi-circle surrounding the Japanese encampment from coast to coast. Along the Gulf Coast was also a line of American battleships, so that the Japanese encampment was entirely surrounded with an almost continuous line of aeroplane destroying guns.
All preparations were at last complete and with cavalry beneath and aeroplanes above, the American strategists planned a dash across the Japanese territory with the belief that the outlying lines of artillery would bring to earth those that succeeded in getting into the air.
One evening at the hour of twilight, messengers passed rapidly among the Japanese distributing maps and orders to prepare for flight.
Late that night, their possessions made ready for flight, Komoru and Ethel sat with Professor and Madame Oshima beneath the latter's plane.
"Our scouts have come to the conclusion," said Oshima, "that a cavalry attack is to be expected in the early morning. So our plan is for a signal plane to rise at two o'clock directly over the center of our territory. It will carry a bright yellow light. Beginning with the outlying groups our forces are to fly toward the light, rising as they go. Attaining an altitude of two miles they are thence to fly due north as our maps show. We will suffer some loss, but two miles high and at night I guess American gunners will not inflict great damage."
Ethel shuddered.
"Do you think the American aviators will follow us?" asked Komoru.
"That depends," replied the older man, "upon the reception we give them; we have them outnumbered."
"They carry men gunners," said Madame Oshima.
"So," said the Professor, "but shooting from an aeroplane depends not so much upon the gunner as upon the steersman. Their planes wabble, the metal frame work is too stiff, it doesn't yield to the air pressure."
Along such lines the conversation continued for an hour or so. Neither the men nor Madame Oshima seemed the least bit excited over the prospects; but Ethel, striving to keep up external appearances, was inwardly torn with warring emotions.
Making an excuse of wishing to look for something among her luggage, the girl finally escaped and walked quickly toward the other plane. But instead of stopping, she passed by and continued down between the rows of cotton, avoiding as much as possible the lights that dotted the field about her.
"Oh, God!" she repeated under her breath; "Oh, God! I can't go! I won't go!"
For some time she walked on briskly trying to calm her feverish mind and reason out a sane course of procedure.
She was passing thus where the lights of two planes glowed fifty meters at either side, when she stumbled heavily over some dark object between the cotton rows. She turned to see what it was; and, bending forward, discerned in the starlight the body of a man. She started to run; then, fearing pursuit the more, checked her speed. As she did so some one grasped her arm and a heavy hand was clapped over her mouth.
"Keep quiet," commanded her captor hoarsely. In another instant he had bent her back over his knee and thrown her—or rather dropped her for she did not resist—upon the soft earth beneath.
"If you make a sound, I'll have to shoot," he said, resting a heavy knee upon her chest and clasping her slender wrist in a vise-like grip of a single hand.
The girl breathed heavily.
The man reached toward his hip pocket and drawing forth a bright metallic object held it close to her face. Her breath stopped short. Then a flood of light struck her full in the eyes, as her captor pressed the button on his flash lamp.
"God! a woman!" the man gasped. The exclamation and voice were clearly not Japanese.
Ethel felt the grip loosen from her wrists and the weight shift from her chest.
"You're no Japanese!" he said under his breath, at the same time letting the glowing flash lamp fall from his hand.
Presently Ethel raised her head and reached for the lamp where it lay wasting its rays against the black soil. She now turned the glow on the other and saw kneeling beside her a young man in American clothes. He was hatless and coatless and his soft gray shirt was torn and mud bespattered. A massive head of uncombed hair crowned a handsome forehead, but the face beneath was marred by a stubby growth of beard.
"Who are you?" whispered Ethel finding her voice.
"Put out the light," he commanded, reaching forward to take it from her.
"Who are you?" he asked reversing the query as they were again in darkness.
"I'm a girl," said Ethel.
The man laughed softly.
"I'm not," he said.
Ethel drew herself into a sitting posture. "Which side of this war are you on?" she asked.
The man was afraid to commit himself—then a happy thought struck him. "The same side that you are," he answered diplomatically.
It was Ethel's turn to smile.
"You are an American?" she ventured at length.
"Yes," he said. "So are you?"
"Yes."
"Then why are you wearing Japanese clothes?"
"Because—" she said hesitatingly, "I haven't any others."
For some minutes he said nothing.
"Are you going to give the alarm of my presence?" he asked at length.
"No."
"Then I'll go," he said.
Rising from his knees, but still stooping, he made off rapidly down the cotton row.
Ethel breathed deeply. Confused thoughts flashed through her mind. She would not return to go with Komoru; in her Japanese garb she feared the early morning sweep of American cavalry; but to the man who had just left her, why could she not explain?
Without further debate, she arose, and at top speed ran after the retreating figure.
The next instalment of this absorbing tale will appear in the September issue of PHYSICAL CULTURE. It tells of how the Japanese attempt to obtain control of the United States through scientific measures rather than barbarous warfare, and is wonderfully interesting and readable. Don't miss it.
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