A Barnstormer in Oz

"When are you going to attack?"

"It's better that you don't know. Don't think about trying to warn them. It wouldn't do any good. I can, however, understand why you would want to do that."

He walked away without saying goodnight.

Lamblo did not come to bed; she sent word that she had been ordered to attend Glinda all that night. Hank tried to sleep but could not. He got up and drank some of the expensive imported Gillikin liquor which was much like scotch. After smoking several pipes and downing half a fifth, he reeled to bed. He did not drop off at once, however. He could not find a comfortable position, and he was about to get up again when he became aware that someone was shaking his shoulder. He sat up. Dawn light was flooding the room.

Mizdo, looking tired, black under the eyes, had awakened him. His head hurt, his eyes were gummed, and his mouth tasted like the bottom of a chamber pot.

"The queen wants you."

"O.K., O.K., give me a minute."

Despite the urgency, he took his time. He shaved and showered and brushed his teeth with salt and drank some berry juice. Then he dressed slowly. He knew that he was not going to like this day, and he was putting off the inevitable as long as he could.

Glinda was not, as he had expected, waiting for him in her suite or in the conference room. Lamblo, who looked even more worn and pale than Mizdo, met him at the foot of the staircase on the first floor. She greeted him but did not ask him how he was. She said, "We'll take the chariot to the meadow."

They rode out on a road empty of people and animals until they got to the meadow. Here were many soldiers, male and female, and hundreds of hawks and eagles. Some of the birds were stained with dried blood.

Hank looked around. There must have been a great noise late last night, screaming, shouting, rifles, and machine guns firing. He had not heard it; his suite was on the far south side of the castle and the walls were thick. Now there was silence except for the shuffling of feet, the clink now and then of metal against metal, and the occasional soft orders from officers.

Glinda stood on top of the embankment by the ditch. Hank went to her side and looked down on the dead. Most of the Americans were lying behind the log palisade, but some must have tried to escape across the meadow and into the woods. They had been caught by the birds and their faces and throats torn out. Dead hawks and eagles lay by them, but most of the slain birds were among the corpses behind the logs. Several dozen of the defenders had arrows sticking from them.

"The attack was launched an hour before dawn," Glinda said. "It caught most of them asleep. I sent in archers in the third wave, and they finished up those still fighting and the wounded."

Soldiers clad in white baggy clothes and face masks were pouring methyl alcohol and oil over the bodies. When this was completed, the torches were applied. Black smoke rose from the flames. Even though the wind was from the southwest, Hank could smell the burning flesh. Hank fought against getting sick. He had never before seen wholesale carnage close up. He had been far above the bodies lying on fields churned up by artillery barrages.

The white-clothed soldiers carried in branches and narrow logs and set them over the bodies. Then they threw buckets of alcohol and oil on the wood.

The wounded birds were being treated with watered alcohol. Some of them screamed with pain.

"I don't think that's necessary," Hank said. "I doubt very much if any... of my people... were diseased."

"I don't want to take any chances."

Hank returned to his suite in the castle, put paper, ink bottle, and pen on the desk, and then walked for a while around the room, his lips moving. Having composed his text roughly, he sat down and began writing.

July 10, 1923 Henry Lincoln Stover American Citizen Castle of Queen Glinda Quadlingland, Amariiki

Warren Gamaliel Harding President of the United States of America White House Washington, D.C., U.S.A. Earth

Dear Mr. President:

Doubtless, you will know in a few days what happened to the soldiers who invaded this world.

As commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the U.S. A., you are responsible for the invasion and (heir deaths.

You were ill-advised to permit this, but you are the one with the final responsibility.

Surely, you were fully informed of the possible, indeed, inevitable, consequences of this invasion. My report must have been sent to you, sir.

I just ca

I am very angry, and I am very ashamed, and I grieve deeply.

I feel that the officers and the civilian scientists and the government officials who have participated in this project are guilty of a crime. But their guilt is little compared to yours, sir.

I have always been proud of being an American, though I realize that we Americans have done and are doing certain things that we should be deeply ashamed of. But I've always felt that, though we are far from perfect, there is something in the American spirit that is always struggling to rectify the evils in our society. I've always felt that we were not the only ones distinguished by these evils. That is, that all other nations have their evils, some like ours, some of a different nature.

My mother taught me that, though I like to think that I would have been objective enough to realize that myself when I became an adult.

I am speaking, of course, of the position of the Negro, of the treatment of Chinese, Japanese, and the American Indian, of the vast and deep corruption in our government, federal, state, municipal, of the corruption and deaths and ruined lives resulting from the stupid Prohibition law, and... but why go on?

These are our problems, and I have faith enough in our political system and in the spirit of the times to feel that, with time, we'll solve them.

It's what's going on now with this world that concerns me.

I have tried to find excuses for the invasion, but I have absolutely failed. There are no acceptable ones. They are unacceptable to me as an American and a human being. There should not be any differentiation in those words, to be an American should mean to be a human being. Sometimes the two terms are synonymous; more often, they're not. But I am an individual, a person, my own self, and I strive to be both. That means that I don't support the slogan, "My country, right or wrong." I want it to be always right, and, if it sees that it's wrong, to become right.

I would think the same if I were a Frenchman or a Russian or a Chinese or a British citizen or a Siamese.

Queen Glinda does not want you to enter this world. She wants all entrance and communication stopped. She does not want, and I don't want it, either, plagues that will kill hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of the citizens of this world. She speaks only for one of the nations here, but I am one hundred percent certain that the other governments here would feel exactly as she does.

I am not a traitor because I oppose you or whoever might succeed you. I had no part in the destruction of the invasion force that you sent, and I did my best to find some other way of dealing with the force. I still think of myself as a citizen of the U.S.A., a loyal citizen. But one who's deeply ashamed and grieved because of what his country is doing now.

I beg you, sir, I beg as an American and a human being, that you close down this project. That all activity concerning it cease.

The dangers are not only for the people of this world. If you persist, you may open America—the world—to things which would be even more dangerous, fatal, to the people of Earth.

The implications of these dangers are in my reports. I have not exaggerated or lied. Please, I beg of you, consider them.