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Chapter 1
Since earliest childhood I have been strangely fascinated by the mystery
surrounding the history of the last days of twentieth century Europe. My interest
is keenest, perhaps, not so much in relation to known facts as to speculation
upon the unknowable of the two centuries that have rolled by since human
intercourse between the Western and Eastern Hemispheres ceased--the mystery
of Europe's state following the termination of the Great War--provided, of course,
that the war had been terminated.
From out of the meagerness of our censored histories we learned that for fifteen
years after the cessation of diplomatic relations between the United States of
North America and the belligerent nations of the Old World, news of more or less
doubtful authenticity filtered, from time to time, into the Western Hemisphere
from the Eastern.
Then came the fruition of that historic propaganda which is best described by its
own slogan: "The East for the East--the West for the West," and all further
intercourse was stopped by statute.
Even prior to this, transoceanic commerce had practically ceased, owing to the
perils and hazards of the mine-strewn waters of both the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans. Just when submarine activities ended we do not know but the last
vessel of this type sighted by a Pan-American merchantman was the huge Q 138,
which discharged twenty-nine torpedoes at a Brazilian tank steamer off the
Bermudas in the fall of 1972. A heavy sea and the excellent seamanship of the
master of the Brazilian permitted the Pan-American to escape and report this last
of a long series of outrages upon our commerce. God alone knows how many
hundreds of our ancient ships fell prey to the roving steel sharks of blood-frenzied
Europe. Countless were the vessels and men that passed over our eastern and
western horizons never to return; but whether they met their fates before the
belching tubes of submarines or among the aimlessly drifting mine fields, no man
lived to tell.
And then came the great Pan-American Federation which linked the Western
Hemisphere from pole to pole under a single flag, which joined the navies of the
New World into the mightiest fighting force that ever sailed the seven seas--the
greatest argument for peace the world had ever known.
Since that day peace had reigned from the western shores of the Azores to the
western shores of the Hawaiian Islands, nor has any man of either hemisphere
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