Nevertheless, the pamphlet, A Warning from X, could not fail to leave a deep impression. Nearly everywhere a populist anti-Newt movement was gaining ground, and Associations for the Liquidation of Newts, Anti-Salamander Clubs, Committees for the Defence of Mankind and many other similar organisations were set up. The Newt delegates were insulted in Geneva on their way to the twelve-hundred-and-thirteenth meeting of the Commission for the Study of the Newt Question. The close-boarded fences along the seashores had threatening slogans painted on them, such as Death to Newts, Down with Salamanders, and the like. Many Newts were stoned to death; no salamander dared raise its head out of the water in daylight. In spite of that there were no protest manifestations or acts of revenge from their side. They were simply invisible, at least during the day; and people who peeped over the Newt fences saw only the infinite and indifferently murmuring sea. ‘Look at those bastards,’ people were saying spitefully; ‘won’t even show their faces!’
And into that oppressive silence erupted the so-called Louisiana Earthquake.
7
The Louisiana Earthquake
That day - it was 11 November at one o’clock in the morning - a sharp earth tremor was felt in New Orleans; several shanties in the Negro quarter collapsed; people ran out into the streets in panic but the tremors did not recur; there was only a violent squall, a brief howling cyclone, which smashed windows and lifted roofs in the narrow Negro streets; a few dozen people were killed; then a heavy rain of mud descended.
While the New Orleans fire brigades drove out to the worst hit streets, the telegraphs chattered with incoming messages from Morgan City, Plaquemine, Baton Rouge and Lafayette: SOS! Send rescue parties! Half the place swept away by earthquake and cyclone; Mississippi dykes in danger of collapsing. Send immediately earthwork teams, ambulances and all men capable of work! - From Fort Livingston came only the laconic inquiry: Hi, are you in the shit too? - then came a signal from Lafayette: Attention, attention! Worst hit spot New Iberia. Communications appear severed between New Iberia and Morgan City. Help needed there! - A moment later Morgan City came through on the telephone: Have lost contact with New Iberia. Highway and railroad presumed cut. Send ships and aircraft to Vermilion Bay! We are OK for supplies. Have about thirty dead and 100 injured. - Presently a telegram came from Baton Rouge: New Iberia reported worst hit. Send assistance to New Iberia. We only need workmen, but fast; our dykes now cracking. Doing all we can. - A little later: Hello, hello, Shreveport, Natchitoches, Alexandria sending relief trains to New Iberia. Hello, hello, Memphis, Winona, Jackson sending trains via New Orleans. All cars carrying people direction Baton Rouge dam. - Hello, Pascagoula calling. Have several dead. Do you need help?
By then fire trucks, ambulances and rescue trains were on their way to Morgan City - Patterson - Franklin. After 4 a.m. came the first detailed report: Track between Franklin and New Iberia, seven kilometres west of Franklin, cut by water; appears that earthquake opened up deep fissure running into Vermilion Bay which has become flooded by sea. As far as has been possible to establish so far, the fissure runs from Vermilion Bay in an east-north-easterly direction, near Franklin it turns north, running into Grand Lake, extending thence further north to a line Plaquemine-Lafayette, where it ends in a small ancient lake; a second arm of the fissure connects Grand Lake to the west with Lake Napoleonville. Total length of subsidence about eighty kilometres, width two to eleven kilometres. Epicentre of earthquake was evidently here. By amazing good fortune fissure avoided all major settlements. Even so, loss of life considerable. In Franklin sixty centimetres of mud rained down, in Patterson forty-five centimetres. People from Atchafalaya Bay state that during tremor sea receded by about three kilometres, thereupon came hurtling back towards shore with wave thirty metres high. Fears that many people killed on shore. Still no contact with New Iberia.
Train with the Natchitoches party meanwhile approaching New Iberia from west; first reports, routed via Lafayette and Baton Rouge, frightful. Some kilometres short of New Iberia train was halted because track buried in mud. Refugees relate that about two kilometres east of the city a mud volcano appeared and instantly threw up masses of thin cold mud; New Iberia, they say, has disappeared under deluge of mud. Further progress in darkness and continuing rain exceedingly difficult. Still no contact with New Iberia.
Simultaneously a message came in from Baton Rouge:
SEVERAL THOUSAND MEN NOW WORKING ON MISSISSIPPI DYKES STOP IF ONLY IT STOPPED RAINING STOP WE NEED PICKS SHOVELS TRUCKS PEOPLE STOP ARE SENDING HELP TO PLAQUEMINE: WATER RUNNING OVER THE TOP OF THEIR BOOTS POOR BASTARDS.
Telegram from Fort Jackson;
AT HALF PAST ONE A.M. SEA WAVE SWEPT AWAY THIRTY HOUSES NO IDEA WHAT IT WAS ABOUT SEVENTY PEOPLE WASHED AWAY HAVE ONLY JUST FIXED TRANSMITTER POST OFFICE ALSO BASHED ABOUT HELLO CABLE IMMEDIATELY WHAT THE DAMN THING WAS FRED DALTON TELEGRAPHIST HELLO INFORM MINNIE LACOSTE THAT I AM OK ONLY BROKEN WRIST AND CLOTHES WASHED AWAY MAIN THING TRANSMITTER OK AGAIN FRED.
The most concise message came from Port Eads:
SEVERAL KILLED BURYWOOD ALL SWEPT OUT TO SEA.
Meanwhile - it was now about eight in the morning -the first planes sent out to the stricken areas were returning. The entire coast from Port Arthur (Texas) to Mobile (Alabama) was reported to have been flooded by a tidal wave during the night; there were wrecked or damaged houses everywhere. South-eastern Louisiana (from the Lake Charles - Alexandria-Natchez highway) and southern Mississippi (up to the line Jackson-Hattiesburg-Pascagoula) were covered with mud. A new inlet had opened up from Vermilion Bay approximately three to ten kilometres wide, running inland like a long zigzag fjord almost as far as Plaquemine. New Iberia seemed to have been badly affected but a lot of people could be seen shovelling away the mud that was covering houses and roads. It had been impossible to land. The heaviest loss of life was probably on the coast. Off Point au Fer a steamship was sinking, presumed to be Mexican. Near Chandeleur Islands the sea was covered with wreckage. The rain was easing throughout the region. Visibility good.
The first special editions of the New Orleans papers came out soon after four in the morning; as the day wore on later editions carried further details; by eight o’clock the papers had photographs of the stricken area and maps of the new inlet of the sea. At half past eight they published an interview on the causes of the Louisiana earthquake with Dr Wilbur R. Brownell, a leading seismologist from Memphis University. It was too soon for any definitive conclusions, the scientist stated, but it would seem that the tremors were unconnected with the volcanic activity still occurring in the Central American volcanic belt situated opposite the affected area. Today’s earthquake seemed instead to be of tectonic origin, i.e. it had been caused by the pressure of mountain masses - the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Madre on the one side and the Appalachian range on the other - on the extensive depression of the Gulf of Mexico of which the wide plain of the Mississippi delta was a continuation. The fissure now running out of Vermilion Bay was but a new and relatively insignificant rift, a minor episode in the geological downward movement that had created the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea with the arc of the Greater and Lesser Antilles, that remnant of an ancient continuous mountain range. There was no doubt that the Central American subsidence would continue, bringing new tremors, faults and fissures. It could not be ruled out that the Vermilion fissure was a mere prelude to a revival of tectonic activity centred on the Gulf of Mexico. In that event we might witness enormous geological catastrophes with almost one-fifth of the United States sinking below the sea. On the other hand, if that were to happen, we could expect, with a high degree of probability, that the sea-floor in the neighbourhood of the Antilles would begin to rise instead, or even further to the east where ancient legend spoke of a drowned Atlantis.
Nevertheless, the eminent scientist continued reassuringly, there was no reason to take seriously any fears of imminent volcanic activity in the affected area; the supposed craters ejecting mud were nothing but eruptions of swamp g
ases associated with the Vermilion fissure. It would not be surprising if huge underground gas bubbles existed in the Mississippi alluvium: these might explode on contact with the air and throw up hundreds of tons of water and mud. Naturally, Dr W. R. Brownell repeated, a definitive explanation would have to await further developments.
While Brownell’s prognostications of geological catastrophes were running through the rotary presses, the Governor of the state of Louisiana received from Fort Jackson a telegram with the following text:
REGRET LOSS OF HUMAN LIVES STOP WE TRIED TO AVOID YOUR CITIES BUT DID NOT EXPECT REBOUND AND IMPACT OF TIDAL WAVE AFTER EXPLOSION STOP HAVE ASCERTAINED THREE HUNDRED AND FORTY-SIX FATAL HUMAN CASUALTIES ALONG ENTIRE COAST STOP ACCEPT DEEP SYMPATHY STOP CHIEF SALAMANDER STOP HELLO HELLO THIS IS FRED DALTON CALLING FROM FORT JACKSON POST OFFICE THREE NEWTS HAVE JUST LEFT HERE: ARRIVED AT POST OFFICE TEN MINUTES AGO HANDED IN TELEGRAM WHILE AIMING PISTOLS AT ME BUT HAVE GONE NOW HIDEOUS CREATURES PAID UP AND RUSHED INTO WATER CHASED BY DOCTOR’S DOG SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO WALK ABOUT TOWN OTHERWISE NO FURTHER NEWS GIVE MY LOVE AND KISSES TO MINNIE LACOSTE FRED DALTON TELEGRAPHIST
For a long while the Governor of the state of Louisiana shook his head over that telegram. Some joker, that Fred Dalton, he said to himself at last. Better not put it in the papers.
8
The Chief Salamander Presents His Demands
Three days after the Louisiana earthquake a new geological disaster was reported, this time from China. With a massive thunderous earth tremor the coast in Kingsu province had burst open north of Nanking, about halfway between the Yangtse estuary and the ancient bed of the Hwang-ho. The sea had rushed into the breach and linked up with the big lakes Pan-jiin and Hung-tsu between the cities of Hwaingan and Fugjang. It seemed that as a result of the earthquake the Yangtse had shifted its river-bed below Nanking, flowing instead towards Lake Tai and on to Hangchow. No estimate, even approximate, could yet be made of the loss of life. Hundreds of thousands were fleeing into the northern and southern provinces. Japanese warships had been ordered to make for the stricken coast.
Although the scale of the earthquake in Kiangsu greatly exceeded the disaster in Louisiana it received little attention on the whole: the world was accustomed to catastrophes in China and, so it seemed, the odd million lives did not matter greatly there. Besides, it was scientifically obvious that this was a mere tectonic earthquake, associated with a deep ocean trench near the Riukiu and Philippine archipelagos. Three days later, however, European seismographs registered renewed tremors with an epicentre somewhere near the Cape Verde Islands. More detailed reports stated that a severe earthquake had hit the Senegambian coast south of St Luis. A deep subsidence had occurred between the towns of Lampul and Mboro; this was flooded by the sea which penetrated as far as Merinaghen and the Dimara wadis. According to eyewitness accounts a column of fire and steam had burst from the ground, accompanied by a frightful rumble, flinging sand and stones over a wide radius; after that the sea was heard rushing into the opened rift. Loss of life was not heavy.
This third earthquake caused something akin to panic. IS VOLCANIC ACTIVITY REVIVING ON EARTH? the newspapers asked. EARTH’S CRUST BEGINNING TO CRACK, reported the evening papers. The experts suggested that the ‘Senegambian rift’ might have been caused by the eruption of a volcanic vein associated with the Pico volcano on Fogo Island in the Cape Verde archipelago; that volcano had last erupted in 1847 and had since been regarded as extinct. The West African earthquake, therefore, had nothing in common with the seismic phenomena in Louisiana or Kiangsu, which had evidently been of a tectonic character. People, however, did not seem to care greatly whether it was as a result of tectonic or volcanic causes that the earth was cracking. The fact was that churches everywhere were crowded with people who had come to pray. In some parts even the churches had to be kept open at night.
About one o’clock in the morning - that was on 20 November - radio hams throughout most of Europe observed heavy interference on their receivers, just as if some new, unusually powerful transmitter had gone into operation. They found it on a wavelength of 203; there was a rushing noise as though from machinery or the waves of the sea. From that protracted unending hum suddenly came a terrible croaking voice (they all described it in similar terms: hollow, quacking, as if artificial, and simultaneously enormously magnified by a loudspeaker), and that froglike voice shouted excitedly: ‘Hello, hello, hello! the Chief Salamander speaking. Hello, the Chief Salamander speaking. Stop all broadcasting, you men! Stop your broadcasting! Hello, the Chief Salamander speaking!’ Then another strangely hollow voice asked: ‘Ready?’ ‘Ready.’ Next came a click as if a circuit was being switched, and again another unnaturally squawky voice called: ‘Attention! Attention! Attention!’ ‘Hello!’ ‘Now!’
And now a croaky, weary, but nevertheless commanding voice broke the nocturnal silence: ‘Hello, you humans! Louisiana calling. Kiangsu calling. Senegambia calling. We regret the loss of human lives. We do not wish to inflict unnecessary losses on you. We only want you to evacuate the seashores in the places we shall notify you of from time to time. If you conform you will avoid regrettable accidents. Next time we shall give you at least a fortnight’s advance warning of the areas where we will enlarge our sea. So far we merely have been conducting technical experiments. Your high explosives have worked well. Thank you.
‘Hello, you people! No need for alarm. We have no hostile intentions towards you. We only need more water, more coasts, more shallows to live in. There are too many of us. There’s no longer enough room for us on your coasts. That’s why we have to dismantle your continents. We shall turn them all into bays and islands. In this way the overall length of the world’s shorelines can be increased by a factor of five. We shall construct new shallows. We cannot live in the deep ocean. We shall need your continents as in-fill material. We have nothing against you but there are too many of us. For the time being you can move inland. You can move up into the mountains. The mountains will be demolished last.
‘You wanted us. You spread us all over the globe. Now you’ve got us. We want to be on good terms with you. You will supply us with steel for our drills and picks. You will supply us with high explosives. You will supply us with torpedoes. You will work for us. Without you we cannot remove the old continents. Hello, you people. On behalf of the Newts of all the world the Chief Salamander offers you co-operation. You will work with us on the demolition of your world. We thank you.’
The weary croaky voice fell silent and a protracted hum was heard as of machinery or the sea. ‘Hello, hello, you people,’ the squawky voice spoke up again; ‘and now you’ll hear a programme of light music from your gramophone records. We start with ‘The March of the Tritons’ from the film spectacular Poseidon.
The newspapers, of course, described this nocturnal broadcast as a ‘crude joke in poor taste’ by some pirate transmitter. Nevertheless, millions of people sat by their radio receivers the following night, waiting to hear whether that frightening, fanatic, squawky voice would speak again. It came on the air at exactly one o’clock to the accompaniment of a loud splashing and rushing noise. ‘Good evening, you people,’ it squeaked cheerfully. ‘To start with we shall play for you a recording of the Salamander Dance from your operetta Galathea.’ When the penetrating and shameless music was over the same frightful yet somehow joyful squawky voice returned. ‘Hello, you people! A moment ago the British gunboat Erebus which tried to destroy our transmitter station on the Atlantic Ocean was sunk by a torpedo. The crew were drowned. Hello, we are calling the British government: stand by your loudspeakers. The ship Amenhotep, home port Port Said, refused to hand over to us at our port of Makallah the high explosives we had ordered. She claimed to have received orders to stop all further shipments of explosives. The ship, of course, was sunk. We advise the British government to revoke that order by tomorrow morning; otherwise the ships Winnipeg, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, all of them en route from Canada to Liverpool with cargoes
of grain, will be sunk. Hello, we are calling the French government: stand by your loudspeakers. Recall the cruisers now sailing towards Senegambia. We still need to widen the newly formed inlet there. The Chief Salamander has instructed me to convey to both governments his unshakable wish to establish with them the most friendly relations. This is the end of the news. We shall now broadcast a recording of your song “Salamandria, valse érotique”.’