"Everything is fine," he said "Please announce our successful take-off to the world."
That was the end of the message.
Beyond this one microwave radio set, beamed to the rocket, there were no facilities for fast communication in the Duchy.
Grand Fenwick had no cable office, no telephones and certainly no broadcasting station. A press release had been prepared in advance, however, and it was agreed that this would be sent on the bus to the Associated Press, United Press and Reuters bureaus in Bern as providing the best method of letting the world know that Grand Fenwick was on its way to the moon.
The Swiss bus driver was a little more regular in his schedule than the French bus driver who served the northern border of the Duchy, which was the reason Bern was selected. But he had had a flat tire that morning and his bus was an hour behind schedule when he stopped at the border of the Duchy. He was met there by the Count of Mountjoy, who was dancing with irritation at the delay.
"You would have to have a flat tire on the day we sent a rocket to the moon," said the Count unreasonably.
"If I'd known about it, I would have put new tires on all the wheels," said the bus driver. He glanced past the Count of Mountjoy down the road leading into Grand Fenwick, which he had never visited and had no desire to visit. "Is everybody crazy in there?" he asked. "Or is it only you?" Then he slammed the door shut and revved up the engine before Mountjoy could think of an appropriate reply.
Bern was only fifty miles by road from the Grand Fenwick frontier, but because of the flat tire and rather heavy traffic at Neuchâtel (it was market day) it was four hours before the news of the Grand Fenwick expedition to the moon reached the news agencies in that city. And then there was more delay.
It is unfortunately true of news agencies that they regard anything that comes by bus and is contained in an envelope as not being news. So at the Associated Press, United Press and Reuters bureaus, where the three releases were delivered by messenger from the bus station, the envelopes were put aside to be opened by the office boy whose chore it was to pull out anything from the mail that might be worked up into a feature story or used as a "mailer"—that is, a little feature story itself distributed by mail to their various clients rather than over the teletype.
Reuters was, of course, the senior news agency and it is well known among newspapermen that Reuters has a genius for getting scoops in the unlikeliest places. It is also well known among newspapermen that Reuters, when it gets moving on a story, moves faster than any other agency. Part of this is undoubtedly due to a special esprit de corps among Reuters men, who think of themselves as envoys of Britain and do not like to let their country down. In short, the reporter who fails Reuters fails not merely a news agency but a nation, and this spirit had trickled down to the office boy of the Reuters agency at Bern, who had secret dreams of opening the mail and uncovering some sensational scoop, like a plot to assassinate the President of the United States or put strychnine in the feed of a Derby favorite.
The Reuters office boy was the first to open the dispatch from Grand Fenwick. He did it immediately after lunch and before hunting up the tea things to prepare the cup of tea that the Reuters staff would have out of thick white cups at three o'clock that afternoon.
He picked the Grand Fenwick dispatch out of the bundle of mail because the envelope was king-size and had a fascinating crest on it and he thought it might be an invitation to attend some embassy ball and his boss would be busy and would tell him to go instead… The office boy's daydreams were not confined to an assassination plot directed against the President of the United States or a scheme to doctor the feed of a Derby favorite. The Reuters office boy opened the big envelope from Grand Fenwick and his eyes bugged at what he read. For what he read exceeded all the great scoops of all his daydreams, which he would one time pluck from the routine mail, making his name famous among the great newspapermen of the world.
The heading on the first sheet of paper in the envelope (there were two of them) read:
MOON ROCKET LAUNCHED
And below was the following statement:
The Duchy of Grand Fenwick announced today the successful launching of a rocket designed to land two men on the moon, the launching taking place from the Tower of Jericho in the Castle of Grand Fenwick.
Two astronauts were aboard the rocket—Dr. Theodore Kokintz, world-renowned physicist, and Vincent of Mountjoy, son of the Count of Mountjoy, Prime Minister of the Duchy. The launching occurred at 9:15 a.m. [the date had been filled in since the release was prepared ahead of time] and went off without a hitch. The rocket, powered by an element discovered in the Duchy's famous Pinot Grand Fenwick wine, is expected to arrive on the moon nine days and four hours from the time of launching.
The rocket has been designed to travel at a comparatively low speed—no more than a thousand miles an hour—thus avoiding the many problems attached to high-speed travel in space…
When he had read this far, the office boy, trembling, took the release over to the chief correspondent's desk.
"Sir," he said in great excitement, "I think this is important."
"What is it?" asked the correspondent, busy at his typewriter and not even bothering to look up.
"Grand Fenwick has launched a rocket to the moon," said the office boy.
"From the Tower of Jericho," said the correspondent. "For the love of Mike, when are you going to catch on?"
"It is from the Tower of Jericho," said the office boy, blushing. "And the launching was at nine-fifteen this morning. Dr. Kokintz was aboard.
At the mention of the name of Dr. Kokintz, the correspondent looked up at the office boy and said, "Give me that," and snatched the papers out of the boy's hand He read it, threw it down on his desk and stroked his chin.
"Wonder who on AP dreamed this one up," he said. "Let me see the envelope this thing came in." The boy produced the envelope and the correspondent inspected it carefully, noting the Grand Fenwick crest.
"It's their envelope all right," he said. "But anyone can get hold of one of them."
It's signed by the Count of Mountjoy," said the office boy. "I'm not blind," said the correspondent rudely. But nonetheless he inspected the signature.
"I think it's legitimate," said the boy, greatly daring.
"Horse feathers," said the correspondent. "It's just Joe Redditch over at AP. Forget about it."
The office boy went away, crushed. Here was the great scoop which he had dreamed would one day come through the mail, and it was a joke. He looked at the crest on the envelope again and then at the signature of the Count of Mountjoy. Then he ducked out of the office, got on his bicycle and pelted through the traffic to the bus station. There he pestered several people until he found the driver of the bus which had passed Grand Fenwick that morning.
"Did you pick up anything from Grand Fenwick to bring to Bern this morning?" he asked.
"Yes," said the bus driver. "Three letters. Given me by a real nut. He said they’d sent a rocket to the moon." Thanks," said the boy, and then as an afterthought asked, "What did he look like?"
"Tall. Silver-haired. Had a monocle," said the bus driver.
"Who were the letters for?" the boy persisted.
"Reuters, Associated Press and United Press," said the bus driver.
"There was one for Associated Press too?" asked the boy.
"Yes," said the bus driver.
The boy didn't wait for more. He jumped on his bicycle and rode full speed back to the office, where he presented himself, out of breath, at the chief correspondent's desk again.
"I checked on that moon rocket, sir," he said. "And it's true. I went to the bus station. The driver said the letter came from Grand Fenwick. It was given to him personally by a man who was tall and silver-haired and wore a monocle. There was one for United Press and one for Associated Press as well."
The mention of his rivals stimulated the correspondent to action. He picked up the dispatch again, glanced at the clock and wen
t dubiously to the teletype by which he could transmit messages direct to London. He sat down in the little swivel chair before it and stared at the keys. Then he put Mountjoy's dispatch in the copy holder, hesitated and hit the signal key to call London's attention to the fact that he had something to transmit. The teletype printed out the letters G.A. for "Go Ahead" from London. Shrugging his shoulders, the correspondent started his message.
HAVE TIP HERE THAT NUCLEAR-POWERED ROCKET LAUNCHED TO MOON FROM GRAND FENWICK STOP [he typed] NO COMMUNICATIONS POSSIBLE WITH DUCHY STOP. KNOW IT SOUNDS CRAZY BUT CAN JODRELL BANK CONFIRM IF ROCKET HAS TAKEN OFF STOP. SPEED ONE THOUSAND MILES PER HOUR, TAKE-OFF AT 9:15 A.M. STOP. WAGNER.
They waited for a few minutes and then the teletype started to clatter, the keys rapping out the message from London.
TOWER OF JERICHO I SUPPOSE STOP. WILL CHECK ANYWAY AND MESSAGE YOU STOP. REDGROVE.
"Well," said the correspondent, "they'll be telling that story about my message in all the pubs in Fleet Street in half an hour. Shouldn't wonder if I got fired." He glared at the office boy, who felt uncomfortable and guilty and glanced at the clock and went off to make the tea, as being the best thing to do in the circumstances.
Ten minutes later the teletype started to chatter again, this time giving first of all the six sharp rings that signified an urgent message was coming through. Everyone in the office hearing the rings gathered around the machine watching anxiously as the keys clattered out the words.
JODRELL GREENWICH AND OTHERS REPORT ROCKET TAKE-OFF FROM SOMEWHERE SOUTHERN FRANCE STOP. FILE ALL YOU HAVE ON GRAND FENWICK STOP. WE WILL HOLD HERE PENDING CONFIRMATION. URGENT. REDGROVE.
"Here," shouted the chief correspondent to one of the assistants, handing him the Grand Fenwick statement, "put that on the wire—all of it. Mark it hold until I send confirmation. I'm off to Grand Fenwick." He fled from the office, dived into his car and headed for the Duchy.
One of the duties of the office boy at the Associated Press bureau in Berne, which was in the same building, was to keep an eye on the Reuters office boy and, if he saw him going out of the building urgently, to find out what was his errand. On this occasion the AP boy goofed, for he was playing a game of checkers with one of the junior reporters.
The Reuters man reached Grand Fenwick in one hour of perilous driving, got a quick interview with the Count of Mountjoy and Tully Bascomb, found nobody had bothered to photograph the take-off of the rocket, but got a picture of its construction taken by Tully, denounced the Duchy for not having a single phone in its territory, and stormed back into Switzerland, where be called his London office from Neuchâtel.
"Redgrove," he said when he got hold of the chief of the London Bureau, "release that Grand Fenwick rocket story. It's astounding, impossible, crazy…anything you want to say about it. But it's true. I've got a picture of the rocket I'm going to put on the wire when I finish phoning you. We've got a clear beat on this. AP and UP haven't woken up yet."
"Get back to Grand Fenwick and stay there and keep a story running," said Redgrove. "What are communications like?"
"There are none," said Redgrove. "No phones or cable offices. I'm calling from Neuchâtel in Switzerland. I'll call Bern and have them send me a couple of men to establish a messenger relay system. If you want to message me, do it through the post office in Neuchâtel."
"Can you give any more details now beyond those you sent over the wirer asked Redgrove.
"Yes," said the chief correspondent. "Give me a telephonist."
Reuters, in common with the whole British press, employed highly skilled shorthand writers who could take any dictated story over a long-distance telephone as fast as it was rattled out to them. A telephonist was put on the wire and the Reuters correspondent, long-practiced at this work, dictated an impromptu story of the short radio report from the rocket to Grand Fenwick, details of Gloriana's farewell address, reaction in the Duchy to the rocket's take-off and the picturesque detail that Dr. Kokintz' last words before departing for the moon, had been a request that his birds be taken care of and fed regularly.
Within a matter of a few minutes, teletypes in newspaper, radio and television offices all over the world, from Darjeeling to Detroit and Melbourne to Manchester, were giving the six abrupt, spine-tingling rings that indicated that a dispatch of the first urgency was coming over the line. And then all these teletypes in all these offices all over the world began batting out the words:
URGENT—A NUCLEAR-POWERED ROCKET WITH TWO MEN ABOARD, ONE OF THEM WORLD-FAMOUS PHYSICIST DR. THEODORE KOKINTZ, WAS SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHED FROM THE DUCHY OF GRAND FENWICK AT 9:15 GMT THIS MORNING IN AN ATTEMPT TO LAND ON THE MOON…
The story, delivered in short takes of one paragraph for quick handling, ran to several columns of copy.
It was ripped off the teletypes as it came through, paragraph by paragraph.
Radio and television programs were interrupted to put it immediately on the air. Newspapers replated, flinging extra editions out on the streets in every city of the globe, and suddenly it was as if the whole distracted world had been silenced and all eyes and ears were directed toward the tiny little Duchy tucked away in the Northern Alps between France and Switzerland which had performed this miraculous and unbelievable feat.
The news hit the eastern border of the United States about eight in the evening, when the last editions of the New York evening papers had long been put to bed. Nonetheless they called their staffs back, replated and put out extras.
The White House Press Secretary, who was having a drink at the Press Club bar in Washington, got the story hot off the Reuters teletype, which was conveniently installed only a few steps from the bar. When the six warning bells rang, the bar emptied and everybody crowded around the Reuters machine. Somebody read the message aloud as it was pecked out by the keys and suddenly there was a mass exodus as correspondents and local men dashed back to their offices in case they should be needed for a Washington reaction.
The White House Press Secretary's name was O'Hara. He'd left Boston newspapers for Boston politics and, having astutely handled press relations for the right candidate, wound up in the White House. In his college days he had been a champion sprinter, but he broke all his previous records in a dash from the Press Club Building to the White House, flung himself behind his desk and called the President, who was sitting down to dinner with an ambassador from one of the Arab States.
"Chief," he said, "there's a Reuters report just come in that the Duchy of Grand Fenwick has successfully launched a rocket to the moon with Kokintz aboard. The press are going to be down on us like an avalanche in a minute.
"Say that again," said the President.
O'Hara repeated the statement again and asked if there was any comment he could give from the White House. "Comment?" cried the astounded President. "Comment? Just what would you suggest, O'Hara? I say it's crazy."
"That's what I thought, Chief," said O'Hara. "But there are too many details for it to be anything but true. We ought to have some comment ready. I think we ought to say that we welcome this splendid achievement and so on and point out that, without wishing to detract in any way from Grand Fenwick's credit, we loaned them the money for the research and gave them a Saturn rocket as a space vehicle."
There was a terrible silence while the President digested the import of this last statement.
"Are you losing your mind, O’Hara?" he said at last. "Don't you know what this means? It means that using a secondhand rocket which we gave them, and with an expenditure of a miserable fifty-million dollars, Grand Fenwick has beaten us to the moon. That's what it means."
"They're not there yet, Chief," said O'Hara. "They're not much more than ten thousand miles on their way. It's a slow rocket," he added.
"Ten thousand miles is a heck of a lot farther than we have been able to send a monkey," said the President. He pulled himself together. "No comment," he said. "Tell them we're awaiting confirmation through official sources. And I want a full-dress cabinet
meeting here in an hour. That's not for release," he added.
O'Hara just had time to call the President's chief assistant about the cabinet meeting before the telephone calls from press, radio and television started to pour in. To all he gave the stock reply that the President was awaiting official confirmation of the report and until this was received there would be no comment from the White House. But he was not let off easily.
The newspapermen had been digging into the clippings about Grand Fenwick and found the previous stories announcing the gift of $50,000,000 to Grand Fenwick for rocket research and later the transfer of a Saturn rocket to the Duchy.
What about it? They wanted to know. How come Grand Fenwick could send a rocket to the moon with a gift of what amounted to petty cash and the cast-off materials of the United States? O'Hara pointed out that those questions should be properly addressed either to the State Department or to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The tone of the press was indignant and, sensing this, O'Hara called the editors of such papers as the New York Times, the Kansas City Star and the Christian Science Monitor and suggested that they might consider withholding editorial comment involving the United States for a day or two. The editors agreed. But when a special edition of the New York Daily News, which had been flown to Washington, was brought to O'Hara, the headline made him flinch.
It read:
LILLIPUT HEADS FOR MOON
IN JUNKED U.S. ROCKET
The New York Daily Mirror headline was no more friendly. It read:
U.S. "DUD" BECOME
SPACESHIP FOR DUCHY
The Mouse On The Moon: eBook Edition (The Grand Fenwick Series 2) Page 12