Banzai! by Parabellum

  INTRODUCTION

  As usual, it had begun quite harmlessly and inconspicuously. It is notmy business to tell how it all came to pass, how the way was prepared.That may be left to the spinners of yarns and to those on the trail ofthe sources of history. I shall leave it to them to ascertain when theidea that there must be a conflict, and that the fruit must be pluckedbefore it had time to ripen, first took root in the minds of theJapanese people.

  We Americans realize now that we had been living for years like one whohas a presentiment that something dreadful is hanging over him whichwill suddenly descend upon his head, and who carries this feeling ofdread about with him with an uneasy conscience, trying to drown it inthe tumult and restlessness of daily life. We realize the situation now,because we know where we should have fixed our gaze and understand thetask to the accomplishment of which we should have bent our energies,but we went about like sleep-walkers and refused to see what thousandsof others knew, what thousands saw in astonishment and concern at ourheedlessness.

  We might easily have peeped through the curtain that hid the future fromus, for it had plenty of holes, but we passed them by unnoticed. And,nevertheless, there were many who did peep through. Some, while readingtheir paper, let it fall into their lap and stared into space, lettingtheir thoughts wander far away to a spot whence the subdued clash ofarms and tumult of war reached their soul like the mysterious roll androar of the breakers. Others were struck by a chance word overheard inthe rush of the street, which they would remember until it was drivenout by the strenuous struggle that each day brought with it. But theword itself had not died; it continued to live in the foundation of theconsciousness where our burning thoughts cannot enter, and sometimes inthe night it would be born afresh in the shape of wild squadrons ofcavalry galloping across the short grass of the prairie with noiselesshoofs. The thunder of cannon could be heard in the air long before theguns were loaded.

  I saw no more than others, and when the grim horrors of the future firstbreathed coldly upon me I, too, soon forgot it. It happened at SanFrancisco in the spring of 1907. We were standing before a bar, and fromoutside came the sounds of an uproar in the street. Two men were beingthrown out of a Japanese restaurant across the way, and the Japaneseproprietor, who was standing in the doorway, kicked the hat of one ofthem across the pavement so that it rolled over the street like afootball.

  "Well, what do you think of that," cried my friend, Arthur Wilcox, "theJap is attacking the white men."

  I held him back by the arm, for a tall Irish policeman had alreadyseized the Jap, who protested loudly and would not submit to arrest. Thepoliceman took good hold of him, but before he knew it he lay like a logon the pavement, the Japanese dwarf apparently having thrown him withoutthe least trouble. A wild brawl followed. Half an hour later only a fewpolicemen, taking notes, were walking about in the Japanese restaurant,which had been completely demolished by a frenzied mob. We remained atthe bar for some time afterwards engaged in earnest conversation.

  "Our grandchildren," said Arthur, "will have to answer for that littleaffair and fight it out some day or other."

  "Not our grandchildren, but we ourselves," I answered, not knowing inthe least why I said it.

  "We ourselves?" said Wilcox, laughing at me, "not much; look at me, lookat 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 couldnot forget the Irishman as he lay in the grip of the Jap. And quitesuddenly I remembered something which I had almost forgotten. Ithappened at Heidelberg, during my student days in Germany; a professorwas telling us how, after the inglorious retreat of the Prussian armyfrom Valmy, the officers, with young Goethe in their midst, were sittinground the camp fires discussing the reasons for the defeat. When theyasked Goethe what he thought about it, he answered, as though giftedwith second sight: "At this spot and at this moment a new epoch in theworld's history will begin, and you will all be able to say that youwere present." And in imagination I could see the red glow of thebivouac fires and the officers of Frederick the Great's famous army, whocould not understand how anyone could have fled before the raggedrecruits of the Revolution. And near them I saw a man of higher caliberstanding on tiptoe to look through the dark curtain into the future.

  At the time I soon forgot all these things; I forgot the apparentlyinsignificant street affray and the icy breath of premonition whichswept over me then, and not until the disaster had occurred did it againenter my mind. But then when the swords were clashing I realized, forthe first time, that all the incidents we had observed on the dustyhighway of History, and passed by with indifference, had been sure signsof the coming catastrophe.

  PARABELLUM

  BANZAI!