A Barnstormer in Oz

"You can stop right there, Captain Longstreet," Hank said. "There's no use wasting time telling me all that. I have a message from Glinda. She told me to tell the commanding officer that you all must get out, leave, scat, scram, immediately. Toot sweet. She won't confer, discuss, or argue about that. She did not invite you here, and she wants you out. Now! She doesn't care if your intentions are good or bad. Your mere presence here is a hideous danger, a terrible peril, to the people of this land. After you leave, she'll have this meadow and the woods along it burned to destroy the bacteria and germs you may have left here. And nobody will be allowed to use the lake for three months. She won't talk about it, she isn't open to compromise or temporizing or anything except your instant departure.

"Moreover, she does not want the... uh... gate to this world opened ever again once you've returned to Earth. You will take that message back to your superiors."

Longstreet's face was expressionless, but his cheeks were red.

"My orders are to hold this base until otherwise ordered! Also, I am to defend this base if I'm attacked!"

"Then you won't leave?"

"No! How can I? I depend upon the Air Service for transport! But that has nothing to do with it! I have my orders, and I will carry them out!"

"Look, captain, this is not an ordinary military situation. The U.S. hasn't officially declared war on the Quadlings. Very few people even know that this universe exists. I'll bet that you're a bachelor and an orphan. You have no family ties. Am I right?"

Longstreet looked amazed. He said, "How'd you know?" Then, "What's that got to do with anything?"

"I'll also bet that all your men are bachelors with no kin. Right?"

"What about it?"

"You're part of a very secret project. All of you volunteered for this duty, and you were not told much about it. Maybe you were told that it was part of a scientific experiment and that it involved an expedition to another world."

"The fourth dimension," Longstreet said. "A different universe."

"Sure. Anyway, it's very secret, as I said. The American public doesn't know about it. Very few people do. Some of the Signal Corps, some of the Air Service, President Harding, a few cabinet members, maybe even a few high Republican Congressmen.

"Why all this secrecy? Why keep a lid on the greatest discovery in history? I'll tell you why. Look at that castle, Captain!"

He pointed his finger at the reddish building with the walls set with thousands of twinkling objects.

"Those aren't glass, Captain. Each one is a genuine ruby worth several millions of dollars. This land is lousy with rubies, diamonds, emeralds—up north is a whole city studded with emeralds—topazes, turquoises, tourmalines. And there's gold, Captain, more gold than in a thousand Klondikes and a hundred South Africas. And there's silver enough to build the Great Wall of China.

"I tell you, Captain, the men who get their hands on this wealth will be super-Croesuses. But they'll have to keep a tight control on it. Otherwise, Earth'll be flooded with precious stones and metals, the bottom would drop out of the market, and Earth would be in financial chaos.

"So, it's greed that's behind this. The big shots who sent you here to die don't care about you. If you're wiped out, they'll have a good excuse to send in more poor devils to fight and die for them. For the wealth they want. I wouldn't put it past them to send in men suffering from smallpox and cholera and all the sicknesses in Pandora's box. They'd spread their diseases, and just about everybody in this world would die. I..."

"No!" Longstreet shouted. "We were given very thorough medical examinations. There's not an unhealthy man among us. We're clean!"

"You may be. But if military force can't get them what they want, then they'll use disease. Anyway, you're all expendable. If you die here, you'll be buried here, cremated so you won't spread disease. Your deaths will be a

"Shut up!" Longstreet said. "I was told that you might not be trusted, and, by God, I see that they were right! You're a traitor!"

"You son of a bitch!" Hank said. "I'm not a Benedict Arnold! I'm just trying to talk you out of this insanity, show you why you're here! I don't want this tragedy! I want to save you!"

"I have my orders," Longstreet said. "Now, I haven't given you the message to deliver to the queen yet."

Hank only half-listened to the rest. But when he went to Glinda, he repeated the captain's words almost verbatim.

"Did he say when the gate would be opened again?" she said.

"No. He said that that was classified information."

"It's a pity, the whole thing. Very well. What must be must be."

She commanded that the party return to the castle. Stover climbed to the top of the highest tower and looked with his binoculars at the meadow. The log fortifications would soon be complete. Pup tents were being put up within the enclosure, and there were four large bonfires. Dawn would see the base completed. What would happen next? Would the soldiers stay inside the base or did they have orders to attack?

There was nothing he could do about them except to plead with Glinda. That would be futile. She had determined her course with logic that he could not prove false.

He went down to the hangar and worked for five hours on Je

He had hoped to talk to Glinda about the soldiers. She, however, did not invite him to dine with her. He ate in his suite alone, Lamblo being on guard duty. Afterwards, he left the castle and walked down the road until the queen's guards stopped him. He could see the fires and the figures moving around them and could hear, faintly, the singing. The words were indistinguishable but the melody was recognizable. They were singing a popular tune from 1922, "Toot, Toot, Tootsie, Goodbye." He felt homesick for a moment; tears welled. He also felt a desire to go down and join the soldiers.

"Here I am, an American. I'll stand by you even if you're wrong."

That was succeeded by a momentary rage against the men who had sent them here. They should be exposed, punished. Perhaps, if he could somehow get back to Earth, he could publicize their crime and see to it that those fat old men were disgraced.

Now the men were singing Julia Ward Howe's "Hymn to the Republic." That must be making their Southern captain angry. But, immediately thereafter, "Dixie" came to him. Longstreet should be pacified by that.

There was a flare of light, the sound of scraping feet, and the flap of cloaks in the wind. He turned. Glinda and six guards were there. She came to his side and stood silently for a while. Now the soldiers were singing George M. Cohan's "Over There."

He looked down at her profile. The achingly beautiful face was expressionless. She said, "It's sad. Such things should not have to be. I should be hardened to them, but I'm not."

She was not talking about the songs. She was thinking of what would soon be done to them.

"Couldn't you use your ‘magic' to transport them back to Earth?" he said. "That would convince the chiefs that they were up against an invincible force, someone with powers they couldn't understand or cope with."

"No, I can't. There are too many. I would have to use special tools, and I don't have nearly enough. Besides, they'd have to cooperate with me if I did have the means, and they wouldn't. Also, it would exhaust me, leave me wide open for an attack from Erakna. And I doubt very much that the chiefs would just give up."