The Engineer Von Satanas

by Albert Robida

  From now on, no more wars, no more conquests, no more peoples trampled, right coming before might—or, rather, might respectfully bowing down before right. Humanity can breathe freely. No more armed conflicts between peoples, between brothers gone astray. Obligatory arbitration! It is agreed by a solemn convention concluded between all the government that all differences—if any can still emerge—will be submitted to obligatory arbitration.

  Fortunate twentieth century, destined to profit from the harsh experience of hose preceding it!

  Everything is settled. It is signed. General congratulations in all languages; the members of the Congress throw themselves into one another’s arms and embrace—and in the benches to which a select public has just been admitted, people are weeping with joy.

  After the session, the most notable personalities of the Congress, philosophers and scientists, jurists and diplomats, remain to chat in the great Salon of the Presidency. One sees them separating, carrying away the joyful certainty of having opened for the world a marvelous era of fecund and civilizing peace.

  Bless you, Torches of Progress, luminaries of Science—you who have prepared the way for the universal embrace!

  Everyone is talking at the same time; only one of the Congress members—a tall, then man, stiff and bald—is saying nothing, contenting himself with twisting his russet beard. A philosopher with long white hair, greatly moved by the splendid perspectives opening on such a rose-tinted future, almost falls into his arms, while wiping away gentle tears.

  “Well, dear colleague in pacifist philosophy, it is to Science that humanity will owe this happiness, to the peaceful conquests of Science, to its discoveries, its triumphs over matter! At the closing banquet of the Congress we shall drink to Science, queen of the world, to past discoveries, to those that tomorrow is preparing, and will give to us, to the sublime discoveries that human genius is multiplying every day!”

  “Hurrah for Science!” says the colleague. “Look, my good sir, in the matter of discoveries, I have here, in my pocket, a design for a new engine—marvelous, I guarantee! Admirable, this engine, I tell you in confidence, for a submarine! Oh, Monsieur, the submarine—what a magnificent agent of progress! This engine would also suit the airplane, the superb bird that suppresses all frontiers and brings people together. I have one of those too, on this piece of paper—a new model of aircraft, larger—armored, even…this model has all the necessary qualities for great voyages: rapidity, power, and the possibility of carrying a considerable load! A precious machine, sir, if one wanted to bombard a city or a fortress…I’m joking, naturally; my aircraft will never carry anything but married couples on their honeymoon...

  “It’s like these little designs for an improved torpedo. Admire the ingenuity of a discovery completely useless henceforth! I’m keeping it as a curiosity... Oh, this…this is something else—a sketch for an asphyxiating shell. Bizarre, isn’t it? But interesting, as an idea? It’s beautiful, science, even applied to the search for such useless things. I also have a little plan for an improved zeppelin, a marvel that I’ve concocted to amuse myself…it would be very nice to realize it and very useful for peaceful voyages around the world…for the benefit of people who are afraid of sea-sickness...

  “These little sketches are for research of another kind. This one is a portable gas apparatus for use in campaigns, and this one is for diffusing toxic vapors…original ideas! That reminds me that in my moments of leisure, I’ve succeeded in isolating the most dangerous microbes at the maximum of virulence…and notice, sir, that it would be sufficient to drop one little bomb—a bombette—furnished with those tiny creatures on a city to cause a serious epidemic. It’s very curious…it’s certain that our ignorant and barbaric ancestors would never have dreamed of that...

  “And I still have a number of other pretty little inventions, thoroughly studied and carefully put aside, for the love of science...”

  The diplomats of the Congress had formed a circle; they were listening, very interested by all the ingenious things of which use would obviously never be made.

  “Who is that gentleman, then? Remind me of his name, I beg you,” one of his colleagues asked the slightly alarmed pacifist philosopher.

  “You don’t know him? It’s the great engineer Satanas, a worldwide celebrity, who dearly wants to put all his science and all his genius as a seeker at the service of our ideas, for the peace and happiness of humankind.”

  “Admirable!”

  The great engineer Satanas, who was following them with his gaze, was still twisting his beard and smiling at them amicably while giving a few explanations to the interested diplomats.

  But we know him, that engineer of genius. He is not the alchemist with the face of a Medieval sorcerer, he is the famous scientist, very modern and so well known, illustrious and celebrated: engineer, inventor, constructor, chemist, physicist, Nobel prize laureate, member of all the Instituts, correspondent of all the Academies of Science in the world…it’s curious, however, how much he resembles the monk Schwartz, of Freiburg im Brisgau!

  Part One: The War of Science

  I. Various strange details of my return to Europe

  and momentous arrival in an unknown land.

  It was in April 1914 that the Hutchinstone expedition, admirably equipped, set forth on its great voyage of polar exploration. I, Paul Jacquemin, was the expedition’s naturalist. We felt full of confidence and hope. All the scientific notabilities on the world had addressed flattering telegrams to us. They were counting on us, anticipating discoveries of immense interest. Glorious perspectives...

  Unfortunately, our boat perished, crushed in a collapse of the ice-sheet, in August of that year, just as we were entering the truly interesting zone of the polar regions. Those of us who did not follow the wreckage of the ship under the accursed ice-cap were able, after various vicissitudes, to set foot on a rocky islet almost constantly surrounded by ice, solely frequented by polar bears and penguins,6 and the poor Hutchinstone expedition was doomed to live for I don’t know how many years in lamentable distress, cut off from all communication with the rest of the world, lost, forgotten and desperate!

  However, a few months ago, the Ocean, our jailer, brought to our icy rock the debris of wrecked ships in considerable quantity: an extraordinary windfall, a stroke of luck of which it was necessary to take advantage. Quickly, we set to work, so effectively that we reassembled the least dislocated elements of that debris.

  We embarked supplies of bear-meat and frozen cod, and a provision of penguin eggs; and, quivering with joy, we piled into our wreck. Then, with improvised sails, we set forth for good old Europe!

  It was a difficult and hazardous voyage, and also very slow. Our sailors were old and disabled, we had no nautical charts, and very little of anything else.

  Once we were in the open sea, we expected to be rapidly encountered and picked up by some ship, fishing for cod or whatever, but to our great astonishment, we saw nothing on the deserted ocean but numerous wrecks in a worse state than our own, floating just beneath the surface. What surprised us even more, as we approached what we estimated to be the Scandinavian coast or the north of Scotland, was that there were no lighthouses in the distance to show us the way—not one kindly light to warm our hearts and indicate a hospitable port, before we had finished consuming our supplies of bear-meat.

  We were sailing in search of land, groping our way, if I might put it like that, when, I don’t know how, in the middle of the night but in the most beautiful moonlight, as I was on watch, my wide eyes scanning the horizon, a frightful explosion sent us all, passengers and ship, in little pieces, to the bottom.

  After the shock, when I came back to the surface and recovered consciousness, along with a little strength, I found that I was the sole survivor of the survivors of the Hutchinstone expedition, hanging on to a fragment of broken mast, face to face with a young man I did not know, who seemed just as frightened as me.

  I had never seen him before; he was
not a member of the Hutchinstone expedition. Where had he spring from? How did he come to be there, astride my fragment of mast? That was a truly extraordinary surprise.

  “How do you come to be here?” I exclaimed, as soon as I could speak. “I don’t know you...”

  “I was here before you,” he replied. “This mast is mine. I saw your boat blow up, and even received the pieces on my head. As for me, I was blown up the day before yesterday. I’ve been floating in this deplorable state for forty-eight hours.”

  My amazement was redoubled.

  When our emotion had calmed down slightly, we introduced ourselves. I was coming from the North Pole, he had arrived after a long haul from a small island in the Pacific Ocean, and we had met up between two explosions in an unknown sea, without having perceived a single sailing ship or steamer during our long journey.

  That solitude of the oceans and seas frequented by so many ships, at the intersection of so many shipping lanes, amazed me. It even made cold shivers run down my back—a few more of them, since I was already shivering from that unexpected complete bath. I came back to our accident—or, rather, accidents, since there was also the young sailor’s.

  “It’s utterly incomprehensible,” I said to him. “What blew us up? A floating mine? A torpedo?”

  “I don’t know,” the young man replied. “But there isn’t much traffic around. For days on end I’ve seen suspicious objects floating among the wreckage and carcasses of ships. I try to keep my mast away from them, for fear of another explosion.”

  “What does it all mean?”

  “I don’t know—but look over there, at that sort of buoy that the wind seems to be pushing in our direction. Look out! Let’s try to push it away gently if it comes too close. I don’t trust it!”

  A little frisson passed through me, and my teeth started chattering. “The water’s cold,” I said, to explain my emotion.

  “Yes,” said the young man. “That’s the worst part of the situation—I’m frozen. But perhaps we’ll be lucky enough to see land before nightfall, or encounter a bit of wreckage more comfortable than our bit of mast. It’s quite possible, for since the morning of the day before yesterday, I’ve already passed an empty barrel, a yard-arm, and half a launch—which I had to let go, because it was obviously about to sink. It was a good find, though, that launch, because I was able to pick up this crate of food you can see over there, solidly moored to that bit of topsail. Do you want a bit of sausage and a swig of whisky?”

  I accepted enthusiastically, and thanked the providential young man. Then, warmed up by the whisky, I thought about my poor companions on the expedition, who were asleep in the cabin at the moment of the explosion, dreaming about the return to old Europe, their families and friends, and the tranquil life that awaited them there. Where were they now? Rolled by the waves I don’t know how many fathoms deep, alas. Alas!

  To escape that vision I recommenced my questions.

  “But what does it all mean? We ought to be able to see fifty ships on the horizons: steamers, commercial three-masters, big trawlers, fishing boats…but nothing! Nothing but wrecks. Or mines, which is worse. Has there been some cataclysm, some upheaval, in this region north of Europe? Young man, since 1914 I haven’t seen anyone, not a single human being, except for my unfortunate companions, drowned just now, and I haven’t read a single newspaper. That makes fifteen years, since, if there’s no error in my calculations, it’s now 1929...”

  “You don’t know anything, then? You don’t know? I’m only a little better informed myself. Wait until we’re a little more tranquil, and I’ll tell you what I know. For the moment, let’s look out for squalls!”

  We had drawn closer together. Both sitting stride our fragment of mast, attached to the topmast by a coil of rope, tossed around by an incessant movement, we scanned the horizon anxiously as we rose to the crests of the waves, to descend again thereafter into the dark green hollows, the sinister valleys of the Ocean, where I thought I glimpsed strange dismantled carcasses, formless and disquieting masses, rolling beneath the surface.

  He was right, the young man; more than once, in the course of a long and mortal day, we had to avoid, and with a great deal of difficulty, buoys of malevolent appearance, the impact of which might have pulverized us, or bits of wreckage hurled at us at great speed by the brutal and malevolent waves.

  The swell increased, the sea became darker and more difficult, and I closed my eyes in discouragement. Soaked and half-drowned, stunned by the shock of the waves that broke over our heads, what would become of us when night fell?

  The young man passed me the whisky again.

  “Buck up!” he shouted to me. “Hang on, look over there! There’s a wreck of a boat that seems to me to be in fairly good condition. It’s gaining on us—if we can grab hold of it as it goes past, we could be almost dry before long, and I think we might sleep tonight!”

  He was adroit, the young man, and less rheumatic than me. He was able to get hold of the wreck when the waves brought it closer to us, and succeeded in hauling me aboard, after the crate of food had been securely tied down in the most solid part of the boat.

  What satisfaction! We were almost dry in that wreck, except when a wave bigger than the rest broke over us.

  Night could come; we would try to pass it as least badly as possible.

  “Lovely sunset,” said the young man.

  I didn’t care about the sunset! Exhausted, I could do no more; I was already closing my eyes, without distinguishing anything but vague red and yellow gleams in a westerly direction.

  “Quite beautiful,” the young man went on. “But no sign of wind. Let’s hold on!”

  The night wasn’t too bad. We took turns to sleep—or rather, when my turn came to watch, I contented myself with drowsing, opening an eye, with difficulty, every half hour, when the cold woke me up.

  Dawn deigned to appear; while I slept, broad daylight arrived; hunger extracted me from my dolorous dreams, and the young man completed my awakening by giving me a thick slice of ham, almost shoving it into my mouth.

  “Have we arrived?” I said.

  “Not yet,” he replied, “but let’s eat anyway.”

  We ate. No land in sight. The day passed. We ate again. I saw, anxiously, that the food supplies were visibly depleted.

  Nightfall again. This time, I watched the sun set.

  “Lovely!” the young man repeated.

  “Sinister,” I said. “Those red and black stripes don’t suggest anything good to me!” Indeed, the inkpot soon overflowed into the sky; the weather was decidedly turning bad. There was no thought of sleep that night. What shocks! And what creakings in every plank of our boat! What furious assaults the waves delivered! We thought more than once that our last moment had arrived.

  The squall caught us from behind and we sped. We must have covered a lot of distance! All night we flew vertiginously, in a whirlwind of foam.

  Toward morning, without expecting it, having not perceived in the horror of the darkness any shore or beacon, we were hurled on to the coast, tumbling on to sand, fortunately friable, in the midst of the debris of our shattered craft.

  I was lying down, or rather embedded, in the sand, half-stunned, and I saw my young stranger rubbing his shoulders and feeling his limbs, fifteen meters away.

  “Nothing broken?” I shouted, when I had got my breath back.

  “I don’t think so. No, I’m all right, I can stand up. You?”

  “Me too,” I said, hauling myself painfully to my feet.

  Oof! We were dripping like sponges, bruised and frozen; the air was keen, the dawn hardly casting a few wan gleams over the gray, flat landscape.

  Where are we? Norway? England? No rocky cliffs, nor mountains framing our beach, so it’s not Norway.

  Anyway, we’ll go and see. Saved! Finally, saved! What joy!

  I could have kissed the sand of that beach that had collected us, all in all, rather gently, when we might have been crushed on some rock.


  “Let’s walk to warm ourselves up, and try to find help in some village.”

  And we set forth, walking straight ahead, at hazard, since we couldn’t see anything: not a single steeple, or house, or farm. The coast was nothing but sand dunes, green or yellow undulations, with no clumps of trees.

  We walked for more than an hour. Still nothing, and no one. There were no inhabitants on that shore, then, whose yellow silhouette we could now distinguish, in the daylight, from the somber sea?

  Ah, here’s something: traces of human labor, lines dug in the sand, with embankments to the side, retained by fastenings. It’s old and half-demolished. Ouch! I step on a round iron object buried in the sand, and nearly lose my footing.

  I clear away the sand and try to pick the object up. Damn! It’s a shell. There must have been firing exercises around here, so we’re in a civilized land.

  We go on. Ruins now: a mass of red tiles in an extraordinary chaos of tangled woodwork, on heaps of pulverized bricks. There were once houses here: a group of habitations, a kind of hamlet.

  Then there’s a little rivulet…or a canal rather, for there are the remains of stone banks in places, and the iron debris of a bridge, beside more heaps of bricks and wooden beams.

  What, then? What’s happened? An earthquake? A cyclone? It’s very strange! I rummage in the debris, looking for a clue. Oh! Over there, in that group of houses, a church! There are the vestiges of the altar, a capital, and a fragment of a Gothic balustrade...

  And all that smashed to smithereens. Decidedly, a cyclone must have devastated this corner of old Europe. But those shells? We’re still searching. I pick up bizarre fragments of metal. My anxiety and disturbance increase. In his turn, my companion stumbles over round objects. A shell...two shells...three whole shells...and then others, many others, in fragments of various sizes.