Nordenholt's Million

by J. J. Connington

  “No, I never came across it.”

  “Do you mind if I show you something in it?”

  She rose and took down a book from its shelf; then, coming back into the lamplight, searched for a passage and began to read:

  “ ‘Thus . . . we come to the wilderness of Coradine. . . . There a stony soil brings forth only thorns, and thistles, and sere tufts of grass; and blustering winds rush over the unsheltered reaches, where the rough-haired goats huddle for warmth; and there is no melody save the many-toned voices of the wind and the plover’s wild cry. There dwell the children of Coradine, on the threshold of the wind-vexed wilderness, where the stupendous columns of green glass uphold the roof of the House of Coradine; the ocean’s voice is in their rooms, and the inland-blowing wind brings to them the salt spray and yellow sand swept at low tide from the desolate floors of the sea, and the white-winged bird flying from the black tempest screams aloud in their shadowy halls. There, from the high terraces, when the moon is at its full, we see the children of Coradine gathered together, arrayed like no others, in shining garments of gossamer threads, when, like thistle-down chased by eddying winds, now whirling in a cloud, now scattering far apart, they dance their moonlight dances on the wide alabaster floors; and coming and going they pass away, and seem to melt into the moon-light, yet ever to return again with changeful melody and new measures. And, seeing this, all those things in which we ourselves excel seem poor in comparison, becoming pale in our memories. For the winds and waves, and the whiteness and grace, have been ever with them; and the winged seed of the thistle, and the flight of the gull, and the storm-vexed sea, flowering in foam, and the light of the moon on sea and barren land, have taught them this art, and a swiftness and grace which they alone possess.’ ”

  The moonbeam-haunted vision which the words called up seemed to touch something in my mind; a long-closed gate of Faery swung softly ajar; and once more I seemed to hear the faint and far-off horns of Elfland as I had heard when I was a child. Wearied with toil in my ruthless world of the present, I paused, unconscious for a moment, before this gateway of the Unreal. I felt the call of the seas that wash the dim coasts of Ultima Thule and of the strange birds crying to each other in the trees of Hy-Brasil.

  Miss Huntingtower sat silent; and when I came out of these few seconds of reverie, I found that she had been watching my expression keenly:

  “You ‘wake from day-dreams to this real Night,’ apparently, Mr. Flint. I could see you had gone a-wandering, even if it was only for an instant or two. I’m glad; for it shows you understand.”

  *****

  I have given an account of some of these apparently aimless and inconclusive discussions between us in order to show clearly the manner in which we went to work. At first, we oscillated between the practical side of things, the planning of houses, the laying out of towns, the applications of electricity and so forth, on the one hand, and the most abstract considerations of the mental side of the problem on the other. I remember that one evening we began with the desirability of uniforms for the population while at work. I was in favour of it on the grounds that it would facilitate mass-production and would also mark the worker’s trade and possibly thus develop a greater esprit de corps. She conceded these points, but insisted that women should be allowed to dress as they chose, once their work was done. This brought us to the question of luxury trades, and so led by degrees to the consideration of the cultivation of artistic taste and finally to the problems of Art in general under the new conditions. Looking back, I see that our earlier advances were mainly gropings towards something which we had not clearly conceived ourselves. We did not know exactly what we wanted; and we threshed out many matters more for the sake of clarifying our ideas than with any real intention of applying our conclusions in practice.

  Gradually, however, things grew more definite as we proceeded. We had certain ideas in common, general principles which we both accepted: and as time went on, this skeleton began to clothe itself in flesh and become a living organism. She converted me to her idea that happiness meant more than anything, provided it was gained in the right way. Altruism was her ideal, I found, because to her it appeared to be the most general mode of reaching contentment. At the back of all her ideas, this ideal seemed to lie. She wanted the new world to be a happy world; and each of her suggestions and all of her criticism took this as a basis.

  It seems hardly necessary to enter into an account of the final form which we gave to our plans. It was not Fata Morgana that we built; but I think that at least we laid the foundation-stone upon which our dream-city may yet arise. These far-flung communities which you know today, these groves and pleasure-grounds, these lakes and pleasances, bright streets and velvet lawns, all sprang from our brain: and the children who throng them, happier and more intelligent than their fathers in their day, are also in part our work, taught and trained in the ideals which inspired us. If anything, we were too timid in our planning, for we had no clue to what the future held in store for us. Had we known in time, we might have ventured to launch into the air the high towers of Fata Morgana itself to catch the rising sun. On the material side, we could have done it; but I believe we were wise in our timidity. Dream-cities are not to be trodden by the human foot. The refining of mankind will be a longer process than the building of cities; and only a pure race could live in happiness in that Theleme which we planned.

  Looking backward, I think that during all these hours of designing and peering into the future I caught something of her spirit and she something of mine. By imperceptible stages we came together, mind reaching out to mind. Unnoticed by ourselves, our collaboration grew more efficient; our divergences less and less.

  I can still recall these long lamp-lit evenings, the rustle of her skirts as she moved about the room, the cadences of her voice, the eagerness and earnestness of her face under its crown of fair hair. Often, as we moulded the future in that quiet room with its shaded lights, we must have seemed like children with an ever-new plaything which changed continually beneath our hands. Meanwhile, over us and between us, stood the shadow of Nordenholt, ever grimmer as the days went by, carrying his projects to their ruthless termination like some great machine which pursues its appointed course uninfluenced by human failings or human desires. To me, at that time, he seemed to loom above us like some labouring Titan, aloof, mysterious, inscrutable.

  CHAPTER XIV

  WINTER IN THE OUTER WORLD

  MY narrative has hitherto been confined to affairs in the British Isles; but to give a complete picture of the time I must now deal, even though very briefly, with the effects of B. diazotans in other parts of the globe. My account will, of necessity, be incomplete: because our knowledge of that period is at best a scanty one.

  I have already indicated the part which the great airways played in distribution of B. diazotans over the world; but once it had been planted in the new centres to which the aeroplanes carried it, other factors came into action. From South-Western Europe, the North-East Trade Winds bore the bacilli across the Atlantic and spread them upon the seaboard of South America, especially around the mouths of the Amazon. The winds on the coast of North America caught up the germs and drove them eventually to Scandinavia and even further east. New Guinea, Borneo, Sumatra and the other islands of the chain were devastated from the Australian centres. Madagascar was contaminated also, though the point of origin in this case is not definitely known. Probably the ocean currents played their part, as they certainly did in the destruction of Polynesian vegetation.

  Climate had a considerable influence upon the development of the bacilli, once they were scattered. In the Tropics, they multiplied with even greater rapidity than they had done in the North Temperate Zone. On the Congo and in the Amazonian forests they seem to have undergone a process of reproduction almost inconceivably swift. Those which drifted up into the frigid regions of the North and South, however, appear to have perished almost without a struggle: either on account of the low temperatur
e or the lack of nitrogenous material, they produced very little effect in either of these districts. The sea-plants seem to have been unaffected by them there; and one of the strangest results of this inactivity was the complete change in habits of various fishes, which now sought in the freezing North the feeding- and breeding-grounds which suited them best. The herring left the North Sea and the cod quitted the Banks in search of purer water. On the other hand, the great masses of weed in the Sargasso Sea were almost completely destroyed, along with the other accumulations south-east of New Zealand and in the North Pacific.

  It must not be assumed, however, that wherever the colonies of B. diazotans alighted, devastation followed as a matter of course. For some reason, which has never been made clear, certain areas proved themselves immune from attack; so that they remained like oases of cultivable land amid the surrounding deserts. The areas thus preserved from sterility were not of any great size; usually they amounted only to a few hundred acres in extent, though in isolated cases larger tracts were found unaffected here and there.

  With the recognition of the world-wide influence of B. diazotans, the land became divided into two sections: the food-producing districts and the consuming but non-productive areas. Nowhere was there sufficient grain to make safety a certainty. In America, most of the available foodstuffs were still in or near their places of origin when the panic began to grow.

  In the matter of meat, things were much in the same state. Those countries which produced great supplies of cattle prohibited exports; and the beasts were hurriedly slaughtered and the carcases salted to preserve them, as soon as the failure of the grass made it impossible to conserve live stock.

  Each country offered features of its own in the debacle; but I can only deal with one or two outstanding cases here.

  The European conditions were so similar to those which I have already depicted in the case of Britain that I need not describe them at all. Southern Russia fared better than her neighbours; for after the Famine there were still some remnants of her population left alive; and it seems probable that the lower density of the Russian population retarded the extinction of humanity in this region long after the worst period had been reached in the western area.

  In Africa and India, the course of the devastation was marked by risings in which all Europeans seem to have perished. Thus we have no descriptions of the later stages of the disaster in either case.

  In China, the inhabitants of the densely-populated rice-growing districts of Eastern China were the first to have the true position of affairs forced upon their notice; and, leaving their useless fields, they began to move westwards. At first the stirrings were merely sporadic; but gradually these isolated movements reinforced one another until some millions of Chinese were drifting into Western China and setting up reactions among the populations which they encountered on their way. From Manchuria, great masses of them forced their way up the Amur Valley into Transbaikalia. Others, sweeping over Peking on the road, emerged upon the banks of the Hoang Ho. The inhabitants of the Honan Province moved westward, increasing in numbers as they recruited from the local populations en route. A massacre of foreigners took place all over China.

  In its general character, this huge wandering of the Mongol races recalls the movements which led eventually to the downfall of the Roman Empire; but the parallel is illusory. In the days of Genghis Khan, the Eastern hordes could always find food to support them on their line of march, either in the form of local supplies which they captured, or in the herds which they drove with them as they advanced. But in this new tumultuous outbreak, food was unprocurable; and the irruption melted away almost before the confines of China had been reached. Some immense bands descended from Yunnan into Burma; but they appear to have perished among the rotting vegetation. Another series of smaller bodies penetrated into Tibet, where they died among the snows. The furthest stirrings of the wave appear to have been felt in Chinese Turkestan; and apparently Kashgar and Yarkand were centres from which other waves might have spread: but it seems probable that these westernmost movements were checked by the tangle of the Pamirs and Karakorams. Nothing appears to have reached Samarkand. But here, again, it is difficult to discover what actually did occur. Any survivors who have been interrogated are of the illiterate class, who had no definite conception of the route which they followed in their wanderings.

  The history of Japan under the influence of B. diazotans is of especial interest, since it presents the closest parallel to our own experiences. At the outbreak of the Famine, the practical minds of the Japanese statesmen seem to have acted with the promptitude which Nordenholt had shown. They had not his psychological insight, it is true; but they had a simpler problem before them since they could ignore public opinion entirely. Fairly complete accounts of their operations are in existence, so far as the outer manifestations of their policy are concerned, though we know little as yet of the inner history of the events.

  Kiyotome Zada appears to have been the Japanese Nordenholt. Under his direction, two great expeditions raided Manchuria and Eastern China with the object of capturing the largest possible quantity of foodstuffs. It is probable that these two invasions, with the consequent loss of food-supplies, led to the great stirrings among the population of China. A Nitrogen Area was set up in the South Island, the Kobe shipyards being its nucleus. Thereafter the history follows very closely upon that of the Clyde Valley experiment, except in its last stages.

  Among the other Pacific communities the Famine proved almost completely destructive. I have already told of the spreading of B. diazotans through the chain of islands between Australia and Burma. In Australia itself no attempt was made to found a nitrogen-producing plant on a sufficiently large scale.

  One curious episode deserves mention. In the earlier days of the Famine, news reached the Australian ports that certain of the Polynesian islands were still free from the scourge; and a frenzied emigration followed. But each ship carried with it the freight of B. diazotans, so that this exodus merely served to spread the bacilli into spots which otherwise they might not have reached. Before very long the whole of Polynesia was involved in the disaster. Some diaries have been discovered on board deserted vessels; and in every case the history is the same: the long search through devastated islands, the discovery at last of some untouched spot in the ocean wilderness, the rejoicings, the landing, and then, a few days later, the realisation that here also the bacillus had made its appearance. What seems most curious is the fact that in many cases it was weeks before the ship’s company grasped the apparently obvious truth that their own appearance coincided with the arrival of the fatal germs. It never seems to have occurred to any of them that they bore with them the very thing which they were trying to escape. So they went from island to island, seeking refuge from a plague which stood ever at their elbow, until at last their stores failed.

  On the West Coast of South America a new phenomenon appeared. The huge deposits of nitrates in Bolivia and South Peru formed the best breeding-ground for B. diazotans which had yet been detected, with the result that nitrogen poured into the atmosphere in unheard-of volumes. In most places the winds were sufficient to disperse these invisible clouds of gas; but in some spots the arrival of the bacilli coincided with a dead calm, so that the nitrogen remained in the neighbourhood in which it was generated. The great salt swamp in the Potosi district furnished the best example of this phenomenon. The whole surface frothed and boiled for days together; and the atmosphere in the neighbourhood became so heavily charged with nitrous fumes that the air was almost unbreathable. All the inhabitants of the district fled before this, to them, inexplicable danger; and the effects extended as far as Llica and the railway junction at Uyuni. In this “caliche” district, the destruction of combined nitrogen probably attained its maximum; and the propagation of B. diazotans never reached such a level in any other part of the world.

  But with this enormous multiplication of the bacilli, other events followed. Carried north and east by w
inds, these huge quantities of the germs found their way into the headwaters of the Amazon and its tributaries, and were thus carried eastward into the very heart of the tropical forests, where they continued to breed with almost inconceivable rapidity. Soon the whole of the vegetation in this region was in a decline; and the Amazon valley degenerated into a swamp choked with dead and dying plants. Humanity was driven out long before the end came. Animal life could not persist in the midst of this noisome wilderness.

  The same phenomena appeared, though in a different form, over the southern part of South America. Here also the great rivers formed the main distributing agencies for the bacilli; and the whole cattle-raising district was devastated. The stock was slaughtered on a huge scale as soon as it became clear that vegetation had perished; but owing to mismanagement and transport difficulties the preservatives necessary to make the best of the meat thus obtained were not procurable in sufficient quantities. Nevertheless, by converting as much as possible into biltong, more than sufficient was preserved to keep a very large part of the population alive during the Famine; and in later days, by trading their surplus dried meat for cereals and nitrogenous compounds, they succeeded in rescuing a greater proportion of lives than might have been anticipated.