ONE OF THE LAST MEN

CHAPTER 8 EUROPE MURDERED

Rumour spread by voice and radio throughout the world. An island had been

mysteriously exploded. The American fleet had been mysteriously annihilated in the

air. And in the neighbourhood where these events had occurred, distinguished

scientists were gathered in conference. The European Government sought out the

unknown saviour of Europe, to thank him, and secure his process for their own use.

The President of the scientific society gave an account of the meeting and the

unanimous vote. He and his colleagues were promptly arrested, and "pressure," first

moral and then physical, was brought to bear on them to make them disclose the

secret; for the world was convinced that they really knew it, and were holding it back

for their own purposes.

Meanwhile it was learned that the American air commander, after he had defeated the

European fleet, had been instructed merely to "demonstrate" above England while

peace was negotiated. For in America, big business had threatened the government

with boycott if unnecessary violence were committed in Europe. Big business was by

now very largely international in sentiment, and it was realized that the destruction of

Europe would inevitably unhinge American finance. But the unprecedented disaster to

the victorious fleet roused the Americans to blind hate, and the peace party was

submerged. Thus it turned out that the c******n's one hostile act had not saved

England, but doomed her.

For some days Europeans lived in panic dread, knowing not what horror might at any

moment descend on them. No wonder, then, that the Government resorted to torture in

order to extract the secret from the scientists. No wonder that out of the forty

individuals concerned, one, the Englishman, saved himself by deceit. He promised to

do his best to "remember" the intricate process. Under strict supervision, he used his

own knowledge of physics to experiment in search of the c******n's trick.

Fortunately, however, he was on the wrong scent. And indeed he knew it. For though

his first motive was mere self-preservation, later he conceived the policy of

indefinitely preventing the dangerous discovery by directing research along a blind

alley. And so his treason, by seeming to give the authority of a most eminent physicist to a wholly barren line of research, saved this undisciplined and scarcely human race

from destroying its planet.

The American people, sometimes tender even to excess, were now collectively insane

with hate of the English and of all Europeans. With cold efficiency they flooded

Europe with the latest and deadliest of gasses, till all the peoples were poisoned in

their cities like rats in their holes. The gas employed was such that its potency would

cease within three days. It was therefore possible for an American sanitary force to

take charge of each metropolis within a week after the attack. Of those who first

descended into the great silence of the murdered cities, many were unhinged by the

overwhelming presence of dead populations. The gas had operated first upon the

ground level, but, rising like a tide, it had engulfed the top stories, the spires, the hills.

Thus, while in the streets lay thousands who had been overcome by the first wave of

poison, every roof and pinnacle bore the bodies of those who had struggled upwards

in the vain hope of escaping beyond the highest reach of the tide. When the invaders

arrived they beheld on every height prostrate and contorted figures.

Thus Europe died. All centres of intellectual life were blotted out, and of the

agricultural regions only the uplands and mountains were untouched. The spirit of

Europe lived henceforth only in a piece-meal and dislocated manner in the minds of

Americans, Chinese, Indians, and the rest.

There were indeed the British Colonies, but they were by now far less European than

American. The war had, of course, disintegrated the British Empire. Canada sided

with the United States. South Africa and India declared their neutrality at the outbreak

of war. Australia, not through cowardice, but through conflict of loyalties, was soon

reduced to neutrality. The New Zealanders took to their mountains and maintained an

insane but heroic resistance for a year. A simple and gallant folk, they had almost no

conception of the European spirit, yet obscurely and in spite of their Americanization

they were loyal to it, or at least to that symbol of one aspect of Europeanism,

"England." Indeed so extravagantly loyal were they, or so innately dogged and

opinionated, that when further resistance became impossible, many of them, both men

and women, killed themselves rather than submit. But the most lasting agony of this war was suffered, not by the defeated, but by the

victors. For when their passion had cooled the Americans could not easily disguise

from themselves that they had committed murder. They were not at heart a brutal folk,

but rather a kindly. They liked to think of the world as a place of innocent pleasureseeking,

and of themselves as the main purveyors of delight. Yet they had been

somehow drawn into this fantastic crime; and henceforth an all-pervading sense of

collective guilt warped the American mind. They had ever been vainglorious and

intolerant; but now these qualities in them became extravagant even to insanity. Both

as individuals and collectively, they became increasingly frightened of criticism,

increasingly prone to blame and hate, increasingly self-righteous, increasingly hostile

to the critical intelligence, increasingly superstitious.

Thus was this once noble people singled out by the gods to be cursed, and the minister

of curses. Rumour spread by voice and radio throughout the world. An island had been

mysteriously exploded. The American fleet had been mysteriously annihilated in the

air. And in the neighbourhood where these events had occurred, distinguished

scientists were gathered in conference. The European Government sought out the

unknown saviour of Europe, to thank him, and secure his process for their own use.

The President of the scientific society gave an account of the meeting and the

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