Banzai! | Page 2

the subdued
clash of arms and tumult of war reached their soul like the mysterious
roll and roar of the breakers. Others were struck by a chance word
overheard in the rush of the street, which they would remember until it
was driven out by the strenuous struggle that each day brought with it.
But the word itself had not died; it continued to live in the foundation
of the consciousness where our burning thoughts cannot enter, and
sometimes in the night it would be born afresh in the shape of wild
squadrons of cavalry galloping across the short grass of the prairie with
noiseless hoofs. The thunder of cannon could be heard in the air long
before the guns were loaded.
I saw no more than others, and when the grim horrors of the future first
breathed coldly upon me I, too, soon forgot it. It happened at San
Francisco in the spring of 1907. We were standing before a bar, and
from outside came the sounds of an uproar in the street. Two men were
being thrown out of a Japanese restaurant across the way, and the
Japanese proprietor, who was standing in the doorway, kicked the hat
of one of them across the pavement so that it rolled over the street like

a football.
"Well, what do you think of that," cried my friend, Arthur Wilcox, "the
Jap is attacking the white men."
I held him back by the arm, for a tall Irish policeman had already seized
the Jap, who protested loudly and would not submit to arrest. The
policeman took good hold of him, but before he knew it he lay like a
log on the pavement, the Japanese dwarf apparently having thrown him
without the least trouble. A wild brawl followed. Half an hour later
only a few policemen, taking notes, were walking about in the Japanese
restaurant, which had been completely demolished by a frenzied mob.
We remained at the bar for some time afterwards engaged in earnest
conversation.
"Our grandchildren," said Arthur, "will have to answer for that little
affair and fight it out some day or other."
"Not our grandchildren, but we ourselves," I answered, not knowing in
the least why I said it.
"We ourselves?" said Wilcox, laughing at me, "not much; look at me,
look at yourself, look at our people, and then look at those dwarfs."
"The Russians said the same thing: Look at the dwarfs."
They all laughed at me and presently I joined in the laugh, but I could
not forget the Irishman as he lay in the grip of the Jap. And quite
suddenly I remembered something which I had almost forgotten. It
happened at Heidelberg, during my student days in Germany; a
professor was telling us how, after the inglorious retreat of the Prussian
army from Valmy, the officers, with young Goethe in their midst, were
sitting round the camp fires discussing the reasons for the defeat. When
they asked Goethe what he thought about it, he answered, as though
gifted with second sight: "At this spot and at this moment a new epoch
in the world's history will begin, and you will all be able to say that you
were present." And in imagination I could see the red glow of the
bivouac fires and the officers of Frederick the Great's famous army,

who could not understand how anyone could have fled before the
ragged recruits of the Revolution. And near them I saw a man of higher
caliber standing on tiptoe to look through the dark curtain into the
future.
At the time I soon forgot all these things; I forgot the apparently
insignificant street affray and the icy breath of premonition which
swept over me then, and not until the disaster had occurred did it again
enter my mind. But then when the swords were clashing I realized, for
the first time, that all the incidents we had observed on the dusty
highway of History, and passed by with indifference, had been sure
signs of the coming catastrophe.
PARABELLUM

BANZAI!

Chapter I
IN MANILA
"For God's sake, do leave me in peace with your damned yellow
monkeys!" cried Colonel Webster, banging his fist on the table so hard
that the whisky and soda glasses jumped up in a fright, then came down
again irritably and wagged their heads disapprovingly, so that the
amber-colored fluid spilled over the edge and lay on the table in little
pearly puddles.
"As you like, colonel. I shall give up arguing with you," returned
Lieutenant Commander Harryman curtly. "You won't allow yourself to
be warned."
"Warned--that's not the question. But this desire of yours to scent
Japanese intrigues everywhere, to figure out all politics by the Japanese
common denominator, and to see a Japanese spy in