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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76899 ***
+
+[Illustration]
+
+                    The Man Who Saved New York
+
+                          By Ray Cummings
+
+
+        Porky’s ego wouldn’t stay in his own body, and
+        that, believe it or not, was what saved the city!
+
+
+Of course, as you know, I didn’t figure in the excitement over the
+Green Giant. The newspapers and the radio boys never mentioned me, or
+Lisbeth, or Baldy or even Porky Jenks. Why would they? We have kept
+strictly silent about the whole affair. Not from shyness; none of us
+are against a little wholesome publicity. But it never does one any
+good to be billed as a first class candidate for the nut-house. So that
+Green Giant who waded around in the ocean off Sandy Hook will remain a
+mystery.
+
+Not that I can actually explain him. I can’t. He’s as much a mystery to
+me as to anybody else. But, as it happened, there probably never would
+have been any Green Giant at all if it hadn’t been for me. I don’t mind
+telling the real facts, but I think it’s quite a bit safer for them
+just to go as fiction. You can take them or leave them, so to speak.
+
+And there’s another angle to the thing. The war actually would have
+been won by now--if Lisbeth hadn’t queered it. Hitler would have been
+smashed and everything would have been just swell. I had it all
+planned--and then Lisbeth put the jinx on it. I’m sorry about that. But
+you’ll realize there’s not a thing I could have done.
+
+The queer affair began last Spring--a warmish afternoon when I was
+sitting in my study trying to figure out a plot. Porky Jenks came in to
+see me. I used to know Porky quite well, but hadn’t seen him for a
+couple of years. He was a likeable young fellow, always with a ready
+laugh which is what made him so fat, I suppose. But this was a
+different Porky. He wedged himself down, collapsing in my only
+armchair. His clothes were rumpled as though he’d slept in them; his
+collar was wilted, hanging soggily on his bulging throat. His thin
+sandy hair was plastered on his sweating forehead; he pulled out a big
+blue handkerchief and mopped his face and just stared at me with pale
+blue eyes that looked haunted.
+
+“Well, well, Porky, glad to see you,” I said. “How are you?”
+
+“I’m awful,” he declared. Just out of habit, I suppose, he tried to
+laugh, but it was only a wan, sickly grin. “There’s--something the
+matter with me, Ray. Something terrible. That’s why I’ve come to you,
+see? You’re up on all that nutty stuff--the bizarre, the queer, the
+unbelievable--”
+
+“Oh,” I said.
+
+He stared at me with that haunted look. “Listen,” he said, “do I look
+crazy? Insane? A maniac? Tell me I’m not, Ray.”
+
+“You’re not,” I said. “Cheer up. What have you been doing with
+yourself? Last I heard you were just finishing college.”
+
+“I’m a hardware salesman. Retail trade. That is, I was, but what with
+the war and all, it’s no good.”
+
+“Tough luck,” I said.
+
+“It’s just as well. Walking so much made my feet hurt--they just
+wouldn’t stand it.” He sighed heavily. “Maybe that’s why I’m in 4-F,
+too. That and my weight--my heart. But that’s nothing serious--”
+
+“Oh well, that’s fine,” I agreed. “But now--you’ve got some other
+trouble?”
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+The haunted look came back into his earnest eyes. “I’ll have to tell
+you,” he agreed. “After all, that’s what I came here for.” He gulped.
+“Listen,” he said, “hang onto yourself--you’ll get a shock. The thing
+hit me just about a week ago. Like a bolt from the blue--I didn’t have
+any warning at all. I was feeling perfectly all right, honest.”
+
+“What hit you?” I prompted.
+
+“I was just sitting by the window of my boarding house room.” His voice
+had that awed, solemn tone like you use telling a ghost story. “When
+all of a sudden I wasn’t myself at all. I was sitting in the chair all
+right--I knew that. But also I was a man walking down the street past
+my window.”
+
+“You were--what?”
+
+“A man walking past my window,” he repeated drably. “A perfectly
+strange man--and I was worried because I was late getting home and my
+wife’d give me hell. I was henpecked, scared to death of her, see?”
+
+“No, I don’t see,” I declared.
+
+His fat hands made a hopeless gesture. “Well, that’s what I mean, Ray.
+You think I’m crazy. That’s why I can’t go see a doctor. He’d just slam
+me into an asylum or something.” His chubby hands reached out and
+gripped my arm. “Listen--you’ve got to believe me. Anyway--I can show
+you--give you a demonstration--it’s easy enough.”
+
+“Is it?” I said.
+
+“Sure it is. You see, my ego, id, personality or something, doesn’t
+seem to want to stay put in my body any more. It--it wants to wander--”
+
+“Let’s get this straight,” I interrupted. “You say you suddenly usurped
+the mind and body of some strange man walking down the street--”
+
+“Yes, that’s it! Usurpsed! That’s a good word, Ray. I was sort of
+conscious that he was confused, too--my usurping him that way. He kind
+of resented it for a second or two--and then I guess he went blank.
+Anyway, I was in full control--”
+
+“And what did you do? With him, I mean.”
+
+“Oh. Well, I remember I decided I wouldn’t bother going back to my
+wife--his wife, I mean.”
+
+I could only nod.
+
+“So I went into a Bar and Grill and started to absorb whiskeys and soda
+and to the devil with his wife.”
+
+“And then?” I prompted.
+
+“Well, I can remember getting pretty blurry eventually. Seems like I
+was telling the bartender all my secret thoughts about the wife.” He
+smiled wryly. “And then I--well, you can’t blame me, Ray--it occurred
+to me I might be getting into some sort of jam. So I just--withdrew.”
+
+“Withdrew?”
+
+“I gave that little fellow back his body,” Porky said. He shrugged.
+“What else could I do? I just jerked myself back to my own body--in the
+chair by the window, see?”
+
+For a minute I couldn’t think of anything to say. I’ve juggled with
+weird things like that for years--but strictly on paper, you
+understand. Now, meeting one in real life gave me a creepy feeling.
+Because Porky was telling me the truth. I wouldn’t doubt it. He was
+plainly about frightened out of his wits.
+
+“You say you can do this any time you like?” I said at last.
+
+“Sure I can. That’s just the trouble--sometimes it’s almost
+involuntarily, if I’m dozing, half asleep for instance, I just seem
+suddenly to slip into it. I got into a nasty jam just last night.”
+
+He waited for me to ask him, what? But I just stared at him.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+“Seems a man and his wife were having a big argument--the room over me
+in my boarding house,” he went on. “I could hear them. I don’t know
+what possessed me but all of a sudden I decided to take the wife’s
+part. So I did. She was a little woman, but when my--my personality got
+control of her--she’d always been meek, see? Afraid of the big bruiser,
+see? Well, anyway, it seems I changed all that in a hurry--” Porky
+smiled weakly. “Sort of hard to explain--”
+
+“I get what you mean. Go on.”
+
+“Well, the little woman took a few socks at him which surprised him--”
+
+“I should think it might,” I commented.
+
+“And just as he was socking back at her--”
+
+“You withdrew?”
+
+“Yes--yes I did. And that’s what worries me too, Ray. Not just for
+myself--this damned thing, see? It can work injustice to other
+people--”
+
+“Easily,” I agreed. “That henpecked husband getting home drunk, for
+instance.”
+
+“That’s what I mean.” He was still gripping my arm and his hands were
+shaking. “Ray, listen--a fellow oughtn’t to be able to do a thing like
+this. It’s not normal, is it?”
+
+“No,” I admitted. “No--certainly not exactly normal. But you’re not
+sick, Porky? Nothing seems to be the matter with you--except this, of
+course?”
+
+“No. If I wouldn’t be so scared I guess I’d feel all right.” He
+shuddered. “But what am I going to _do_? Want me to show you how the
+thing works? It’s easy enough. Let’s look out your window here. You
+just pick out anybody--anybody at all--”
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was just then that Lisbeth and Baldy Green walked in on us. Lisbeth
+is my daughter. She’s a nice girl. And good looking--a mop of unruly,
+wavy brown hair, and a figure with curves in all the right places. She
+wants to be a career girl--a news photographer, newspaper reporter of
+the sob sister style maybe, with a big by-line and write feature
+articles; and maybe hold down the City Desk job and publish the
+newspaper. A few little odds and ends like that. Baldy is a cartoonist
+on one of the big dailies. Middle aged, with a wife and six kids. A
+good friend of mine; and he had just gotten Lisbeth a job on his paper.
+Neither he nor Lisbeth had ever met Porky Jenks. I introduced them now.
+And then--because you had to do something to explain Porky’s frightened
+aspect--and maybe I didn’t look too normal either--I thought I’d better
+explain the problem in hand.
+
+Well, as you can imagine, Lisbeth and Baldy were pretty nonplussed. And
+skeptical. But Porky, more gloomy than ever at all this discussion,
+waved away their doubts.
+
+“Then let me show you,” he declared. “Pick anybody out there on the
+street. Anybody at all.” He shoved his armchair up to my open window,
+with us three standing around behind him.
+
+“Will it--will it hurt him?” Lisbeth asked.
+
+“It won’t hurt Porky,” I said. “But it might very easily hurt the other
+fellow.” I must admit the thing had me pretty jittery. I could begin to
+see the possibilities of what might happen. The hazards, so to speak. I
+gripped Porky by the shoulder. “Now listen,” I told him. “You’ve
+evidently had a lot of luck so far. You haven’t killed anybody, have
+you?”
+
+He gulped. “Killed anybody? Oh my heavens no! How could I--”
+
+“Listen--suppose while you--er--have possession of some
+stranger--suppose you got killed?” I suggested. “Or committed suicide
+for instance?”
+
+“Oh please--please be careful,” Lisbeth put in.
+
+“It isn’t Porky I’m worried about, it’s the other fellow,” I said.
+“Look here, Porky--it only takes you a second to--withdraw, as you put
+it?”
+
+“Why--yes. Less than that, maybe. Instantaneous maybe--”
+
+“And so you’d be sitting here in your chair, but the other fellow would
+be dead.”
+
+“Don’t quibble,” Baldy said. “Let’s see him do it. That’s the important
+part.” Baldy also has a good imagination, which is why his cartoons are
+so successful. “If he can do a thing like that, it’s a gift,” Baldy
+added with mounting enthusiasm. “Why, we can capitalize on it in a
+thousand ways--maybe make a fortune--”
+
+“I just want to get rid of it,” Porky said. “But here goes--just so you
+won’t think I’m crazy.”
+
+Well, he showed us, all right. A meek-looking old woman with a shawl
+over her head and an umbrella under her arm happened to come along, and
+at the busy intersection just under my window she stood looking
+confused, as though afraid of the traffic.
+
+“Try her,” Baldy suggested. “She looks like a weak character. You can
+take possession of a weak one better, can’t you?”
+
+“Doesn’t seem to make any difference,” Porky said. “All right, she’ll
+do. Now just watch. Keep your eyes on her.”
+
+We were all of us pretty tense, I guess. I recall that I was trying to
+watch the old woman, and Porky simultaneously. There was the old woman,
+standing on the corner, nervously waiting for the light to change; and
+then when it did, she seemed afraid to start across because cars were
+turning from the side street. And here in his chair, Porky just took a
+good, intense look at his victim. That was queer too. I saw a sort of
+predatory look jump into his pale blue eyes. And then he sat back in
+his chair with a hand up to his forehead.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then it happened. Down on the corner the old woman seemed to start; for
+a second she looked dazed; I think she gave a twitch. Here in the chair
+was a thud. That was Porky’s head falling back inert against the chair;
+and there he lay, motionless, in a trance. Lisbeth noticed him and gave
+a frightened little gasp.
+
+“He’s all right,” I murmured.
+
+“Shut up,” Baldy admonished. “Look--oh migosh, look at the old woman!”
+
+She was something to look at, no argument on that. The light had
+changed back, but that didn’t stop her. With imperious, if shaking
+steps, she strode out from the curb, holding up a hand to stop the
+traffic. By some miracle nothing hit her. And at the exact center of
+the intersection she stopped.
+
+“Oh-h,” I heard Baldy murmur. “She’s gonna direct the traffic!”
+
+That undoubtedly was her general idea. She had the closed umbrella
+gripped in her hand, holding it over her head as she gestured for the
+cars to stop, or come forward. It was quite a sight. And in a minute or
+two there were a lot of sounds --cars honking, the drivers yelling; the
+grinding, bumping crash of a couple of minor collisions. How long it
+went on I have no idea. I was pretty scared. The vague impulse came to
+me that I ought to give Porky’s inert body a shake to rouse him; but I
+didn’t dare. What that would have done, heaven only knows. Anyway, down
+in the street policemen were coming on the run. The scene down there
+was quite a mess, with that old woman still vigorously telling the
+traffic what it ought to do. Nothing had yet hit her. Then the
+policemen reached her; gripped her. The vague thought struck me that
+Porky would probably think this the proper time to withdraw. Evidently
+he did. I saw the old woman stiffen and then go limp in the policemen’s
+arms; and here in the chair Porky gave a twitch, with his head coming
+up, his eyes open staring at me, and a nervous smile on his lips.
+
+That was all there was to it. Just as simple as that.... Porky was the
+first of us to speak.
+
+“Well, there you are,” he said.
+
+“How’d it work?”
+
+“Take a look,” I told him.
+
+He looked. “See?” he said. “That’s what I mean. I got her in trouble
+and I didn’t intend it, honest.”
+
+Beyond any doubt the old woman was in trouble. Four policemen were
+telling her off; and then a radio car came and they bundled her into
+it.
+
+“That’s tough,” Baldy murmured. “How’s she gonna explain it? She’ll
+wind up in Bellevue.”
+
+“Well, he didn’t intend it,” Lisbeth said. Then she turned on me. “Why
+don’t you go down there and do something about it? Get her off--you can
+just tell them--”
+
+“Not me,” I said. “You go. And I’ll come to the asylum and try and get
+you out. This whole thing is crazy, and anybody connected with it--”
+
+“It may be crazy, but it works,” Baldy declared. “Listen, you lugs,
+don’t you realize what we’ve got? A gold mine! Fame! Fortune! Why
+listen, we’ll put Porky in the movies--”
+
+“I don’t want to go in the movies,” Porky said. “I just want to get rid
+of--”
+
+“He doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to,” Lisbeth put in.
+
+“That’s silly,” I told Baldy. “What would it look like in the movies?
+Like nothing. Just trick photography.”
+
+“Well then, vaudeville,” Baldy declared. “The scientific wonder of the
+age. He takes possession of various people in the audience--”
+
+“Wouldn’t _that_ make a hit with them!” I retorted.
+
+“It would not!”
+
+“I’ll bet we could get a thousand a week for it,” Baldy insisted.
+
+“I won’t do it,” Porky said. “I’d wind up in the insane asylum, or in
+jail. Listen, I came here to see Ray, just to ask him would he
+please--”
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was then that the big idea came to me. The war! Money is a wonderful
+thing, but what with all the publicity the war gets, naturally it’s on
+your mind even more than money. How could we use Porky’s gift to help
+with the war? I’ve always had a vivid imagination, and this thing
+seemed suddenly to give it an immense stimulus. Lisbeth was about to
+tell Baldy and me again that Porky didn’t have to do anything he didn’t
+want to do, but I silenced her.
+
+“Look here, Porky,” I demanded, “why did you make that old woman direct
+traffic?”
+
+“I dunno, it just occurred to me. When I was a kid I always wanted to
+be a policeman when I grew up.”
+
+“That’s it!” Baldy exclaimed. “His subconscious! You see--”
+
+I interrupted him. “Porky, listen, could you take possession of somebody
+who’s out of sight?”
+
+“Sure I could,” he agreed readily. “Remember? I told you--that woman in
+the room above me, arguing with her husband. I couldn’t see them.”
+
+“All right. Now then, could you--” Baldy interrupted me. He happened to
+be looking out the window. Down the street from me there’s an
+Undertaking Parlour, with a Neon sign of ghastly green. “Say,” he
+exclaimed, “here’s a thought! I wonder could he take possession of a
+corpse, for instance? There’s probably one over there in that
+Undertaker’s place. Suppose he made it come walking out! Think of how
+wonderful it would--”
+
+“I’m thinking about it and I won’t do it,” Porky declared.
+
+“I should say not,” Lisbeth agreed. “Dad, listen, he’s told you ten
+times all he wants is to--”
+
+“Don’t be gruesome,” I told Baldy. “I’m thinking of something
+important.”
+
+“Like what?” Lisbeth demanded.
+
+“The war,” I said. “I’ve got it all worked out.”
+
+I told them. And I must say, it sounded even more feasible, telling it,
+that it did thinking it up. Nazi submarines are always lurking off our
+coast. We know that.
+
+“Like this,” I said. “We go down near Sandy Hook. Porky doesn’t
+actually have to see his victim--that’s been demonstrated. So he just
+mentally selects one of the lurking submarines and takes possession of
+its Commander.”
+
+“Do I?” Porky said.
+
+“You do.”
+
+“And _then_ what do I do?”
+
+“You have him run his submarine up on the shore and smash it,” I told
+him enthusiastically. “Maybe the crew would get suspicious and stop
+you? If they did--then all you have to do is open valve and sink the
+sub. Or blow it up with one of its own torpedoes. I’m no expert on
+submarines, but don’t you see, when you’re the Commander you’ll know
+all about them. No trouble at all to find a dozen ways of blasting the
+whole thing to smithereens.”
+
+“And kill himself, too,” Lisbeth murmured. “Dad, I thought you had
+better sense than--”
+
+“Not at all,” I explained. “In one split second he jumps out to the
+safety of his own body which is with us on shore. That’s been
+demonstrated. Why, the thing’s perfect. One sub gone. Then he jumps
+into another one! And another! The Battle of the Atlantic is the big
+hitch in our war effort. You know that. Why, this will--”
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+Baldy was beginning to get the bigness of my idea. “It’s perfect!” he
+exclaimed. “Why, listen, when Hitler finds his subs just aren’t coming
+back, he’ll be afraid to send any more out! Then we can get busy on the
+Japs. Take a Jap battleship, for instance. Or a Jap General, ordering
+all his men in the wrong direction! What chaos! What a cinch for our
+forces--”
+
+“Well, I won’t do it,” Porky said. “It just wouldn’t work and I won’t
+do it.”
+
+“Why wouldn’t it work?” I demanded. “Lisbeth, stop trying to tell me he
+doesn’t have to do what he doesn’t want to do. He does have to. This is
+too important a thing--”
+
+“It might work with just the first submarine,” Porky admitted. “But how
+do I know I can jump out of the Commander’s body with everything
+exploding around me? I never tried anything like that. Suppose I
+calculate it wrong and I’m dead before I jump. How do I know whether I
+can jump out of a dead body or not? I never tried it--”
+
+That made Baldy mad. “Listen, you big hunk of junk,” he said, “are you
+going to put your own personal safety ahead of a chance to win the war
+for Uncle Sam?”
+
+“More than just a chance--practically a sure thing,” I agreed.
+
+“That’s because you and Baldy aren’t taking the chance,” Lisbeth put
+in. “You two are safe and he gets killed. For just one submarine. It’s
+suicide--just plain suicide and I won’t let him do it.”
+
+“All right, I’ll try it,” Porky said suddenly. “I’m no coward, if you
+go and put it that way. Only I sure hope it works.”
+
+I patted him on the back. “Good boy. That’s the stuff. Now listen,
+everybody, this thing will have to be kept absolutely secret, of
+course.”
+
+“Of course--definitely,” Baldy agreed.
+
+“We’ll just go ahead and do it and say nothing,” I went on. “The war
+will be won in a hurry--and why it got won will be the mystery. Who
+cares, so long as we win it?”
+
+Well, we planned the thing for about an hour. It was so simple, though,
+there really wasn’t much planning to do. We decided that about eleven
+o’clock that same night, we’d all go quietly down near Coney Island or
+somewhere and go to work on the first sub that came within Porky’s
+range. The range was an unknown quantity, of course. But, so far as any
+of us could figure, there wasn’t any reason why Porky’s astral body
+couldn’t jump a mile--ten miles, for instance--just as well as from my
+window down into the street.
+
+“Well, let’s go to dinner,” I said at last.
+
+“I was thinking I would take Lisbeth to dinner,” Porky said. “Just to
+talk things over, you know.” He gazed at Lisbeth with sort of shy
+confusion I expect you’d call it, and she gazed back.
+
+“I’d like that,” Lisbeth said. “Come on, let’s go.”
+
+“And you be back here by eleven o’clock promptly,” I warned.
+
+“Yes, of course--sure we will,” Porky agreed.
+
+“Because the war depends on you.”
+
+“Should you go A. W. O. L.,” Baldy put in--and he didn’t smile when he
+said it--“I will personally see that you get put into an insane asylum
+for the rest of your natural life.”
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+It occurred to me to mention that Porky could jump out of an insane
+asylum without much trouble, but I decided to keep that thought to
+myself. Lisbeth and Porky departed with more promises; and Baldy and I
+had dinner and loafed around discussing the thing, waiting impatiently
+for eleven o’clock. About quarter past eleven Lisbeth and Porky came
+back. You’d have thought they might have spent the evening soberly
+discussing the weird, dangerous things into which Porky was about to
+plunge. Not at all. They had been to a double-feature movie--“Love’s
+Lingering,” and “Passion’s Pretty Flowers,” or something like that.
+They were very happy about it. But they sobered down when I mentioned
+that Porky had the fate of the war on his hands; and by the time we got
+down to the seashore Porky was looking a little white around the gills.
+
+“I sure hope this thing works,” he said weakly.
+
+“Of course it will,” Baldy and I assured him. We sat him down on the
+sand. It was a lonely stretch, with the waves rolling up in long
+rhythmic lines of white and the open sea a deep purple with leaden
+clouds overhead and a wan moon trying to break through.
+
+“Now then, make yourself comfortable,” I told Porky as we stretched him
+out on the sand. “We’ll be right here by you all the time.”
+
+That didn’t seem to comfort him much. “I sure hope this thing works,”
+he said.
+
+With the fate of the war at stake, I sure hoped so myself; but I wasn’t
+going to express any doubts about it. Baldy and I sat down and lighted
+up our pipes.
+
+“Just keep your mind on the nearest submarine Commander,” I said. “And
+then jump into him and go to work. Then--withdraw. You’ll be back here
+with us instantaneously and we’ll start you right off again, it’s a
+cinch,” I assured him.
+
+“I sure hope so,” he agreed.
+
+“Nazi submarine Commander,” Baldy put in with sudden thought. “There
+might be a U. S. sub out there, Porky. Now listen--don’t you get this
+thing mixed--”
+
+“It’s just plain suicide--that’s what it is,” Lisbeth murmured
+resentfully. But Baldy and I silenced her.
+
+And then Porky went to work. He was stretched on the sand with head and
+shoulders propped up by his elbows behind him. We all held our breaths.
+For a minute or two Porky just stared moodily out at the purple sea.
+Concentrating. Lisbeth was sitting beside him; she seemed afraid to
+look at him.
+
+“I won’t let him do it,” she muttered.
+
+“Shut up,” Baldy growled. “You’ll break the spell.”
+
+Then suddenly Porky gave a twitch. His body stiffened, then went limp.
+There was a little thud as his head and shoulders fell back onto the
+sand. Lisbeth gave a suppressed cry. Baldy and I exhaled; and then went
+back to puffing at our pipes. You’ve got to have poise in a thing like
+that; take it in stride, so to speak.
+
+“Well, he’s at work,” Baldy murmured at last. “Pretty soon we ought to
+be getting results.”
+
+“Yes,” I agreed. “I’ll bet those Nazi sailors on the sub are getting
+kind of surprised, just about now.”
+
+I could picture it. A startled wonderment spreading around the sub at
+the queer actions of the Commander. Or maybe the whole thing was
+exploding just about now.
+
+More time passed. On the sand beside us Porky’s body lay inert. You
+could hardly tell that he wasn’t dead. I could feel Lisbeth’s gaze
+roving Baldy and me as though we were a couple of murderers. Then all
+of a sudden Lisbeth gave a sharp, startled cry.
+
+“Oh, my heavens! Look! Look there!”
+
+We all saw it at once. Out in front of us, half a mile out maybe, the
+purple sea suddenly heaved up. There was a great cascade of water out
+of which a monstrous dark green shape rose towering two or three
+hundred feet into the air. The Green Giant! There he was. How can I
+describe him? I can’t. Not adequately, because he was too awesome, too
+weird, too incredible--but there he was. A great green man-shape.
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+The pallid moonlight shone on him--a green giant who must have been
+five or six hundred feet tall. He was wading waist deep in the
+water--wading, not at us, thank heavens, but parallel to the beach,
+toward Sandy Hook by the entrance to New York Harbor. The moonlight
+shone on his glistening torso--green scales and a slimy sea-look as
+though algae and barnacles might be clustered on it. A Green Giant
+almost in human form. Anyway, I remember that he had a browny chest
+that bulged out over the ocean surface; wide thick shoulders and
+monstrous arms that dangled down into the water as he strode forward,
+with a line of white waves churning at his waist. I saw his face
+plainly. You couldn’t call it human, but that was its general idea. He
+was breathing through his mouth now with a snort that was a gruesome
+rumbling roar; but I could see that he had gills or some such apparatus
+in the sides of his neck.
+
+For a minute maybe Baldy and I and Lisbeth must have just sat there
+stricken, numb, with the body of Porky beside us. And then suddenly an
+immense amount of amazing things began to happen all more or less
+simultaneously. In the town behind us the air-raid siren began wailing.
+Then searchlights from several spots on shore sprang like great waving
+silver swords in the sky. Then, far out to sea there was the drone of
+planes.
+
+An air raid! New York City being raided by Nazi planes! The Green Giant
+had nothing to do with the first alarm here on shore. It was planes
+coming in from the ocean. We heard them; and in a few seconds we saw
+them--four of them, flying low; Nazi planes--the moonlight disclosed
+it. Who am I to try to picture exactly what happened next? It was quite
+a chaos. All I can remember is that one of the planes swerved low
+pretty close over the Green Giant. I imagine that Nazi pilot was sort
+of startled--can you blame him? Anyway, suddenly the giant let out a
+bellow of anger; his hand reached up a hundred feet or so over his head
+and grabbed the plane--seized it, crunched it maybe and then flung it
+away. The plane was a long finger of yellow-red flames as it fell
+hissing into the sea.
+
+I recall I heard Baldy mutter: “Ah--good work! Very neat!”
+
+Good work! That tipped me off. I admit that in all the chaos the main
+fact had not yet occurred to me. You’ve guessed it. Porky! By some
+mischance for Hitler, quite evidently Der Fuehrer had selected this
+particular night for his threatened bombing of New York. Here were his
+bombing planes--four of them. And there was Porky, in the person of
+that astonishing green giant, going to work on them. Those Nazi pilots
+evidently got rattled. They gave up their ideas of heading up the bay
+and for a moment were circling here like a flock of confused birds.
+They were too far away now for Porky to clutch at them, so he stooped.
+One of his hands came up out of the sea with a monstrous dripping
+boulder. He flung it, and another plane crashed.
+
+There was worse than chaos out in front of us now. A lot of our own
+planes were coming, interceptors that went like wasps after the two
+remaining Nazis. One of Hitler’s prides seemed to be shot down; and
+Porky accounted for the other one--that green giant leaped into the air
+with a marvelous standing high jump, grabbed the Nazi plane with both
+hands and tore it into bits. But now a new element entered into the
+thing. Hitler evidently had a few subs around here. One of them
+obviously let loose a couple of torpedos at the giant. Distinctly I saw
+two explosions at the giant’s waistline--torpedos that must have gone
+right into him and exploded inside. Anyway, he doubled up with a
+bellowing roar of pain that rattled our ear-drums and then he went
+down, sinking with a cataclysmic rush of white waves over him.
+
+I recall my fleeting thought that this would be just the proper time
+for Porky to withdraw. And he did. As the green giant fell and
+disappeared, the body of Porky here on the sand gave a convulsive
+shudder and in another instant Porky was sitting up, blinking, with a
+hand rubbing his forehead, and the other hand shoving away Lisbeth who
+was clutching at him.
+
+“W-well,” Porky said. “Here you are. What happened?”
+
+“Plenty,” I said. “A very great deal. But you did fine, Porky.”
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+Baldy was on his feet, holding off Lisbeth who was struggling to get at
+Porky. “Say, listen, you lug,” Baldy demanded, “where in the devil did
+you ever pick up that giant? It happened to work out all right, but--”
+
+“Why--I dunno,” Porky said. “He was just lying around down there--”
+
+“On his way in from Atlantis maybe?” Baldy was sarcastic.
+
+“I dunno. I was concentrating on a sub Commander--how bestial they
+are--you know, that sort of stuff--and all of a sudden I sort of slid
+into that giant.” Porky shuddered. “It was--horrible. But--when I saw
+those Nazi planes, I did my best.”
+
+“You did wonderful,” I agreed.
+
+“You saved New York from maybe a nasty air raid. Now listen, the U-boat
+Commanders are still out there. All we have to do--”
+
+“If we had any sense we’d be getting out of here before we get into
+_real_ trouble,” Lisbeth observed suddenly.
+
+I could see that she had something there. This section of the beach was
+no longer lonely. Spectators were beginning to mill around; and there
+were Coast Guards, with searchlights darting at us, and planes roaring
+overhead.
+
+“Come on, let’s duck,” I agreed. “We’ll come back tomorrow night when
+things have quieted down a bit.”
+
+Baldy and I planned it enthusiastically all the way back to the city.
+Barring the sudden advent of green giants and such, the thing obviously
+was absolutely simple. We four could tour all the coasts. And then
+maybe arrange to get abroad. I figured three months--if Porky could
+hold out--would wind up the war.
+
+That next day, Baldy and I made charts in regular military fashion,
+outlining our exact plan of campaign. We didn’t see Porky or Lisbeth
+that afternoon, or evening. They had wanted to have dinner together
+again, but had promised faithfully to report at my study by eleven
+p.m. They came, right on the dot. And they were both beaming.
+
+“Well,” I said. “Here you are. That’s fine. And you look in good shape
+for a swell night’s work, Porky.”
+
+“Yes, sir,” Porky agreed. “I’m all right. But you see,
+sir--there’s--er--something we want to tell you.”
+
+That “sir” sounded sort of queer, but I admit I didn’t get the idea.
+
+“He loves me and I love him and so it’s all settled,” Lisbeth said.
+
+I saw that Baldy looked startled. What I looked like I don’t know.
+“What’s all settled?” I demanded.
+
+“Us--er--we’re engaged,” Porky stammered. “That is--”
+
+“It absolutely is,” Lisbeth beamed. “He loves me and I love him.
+Definitely.”
+
+To say that I was nonplussed would be putting it mildly. But I have
+always prided myself on having a true sense of values. What’s the
+problem of a daughter compared to the problem of winning the war?
+Nothing. Nothing at all.
+
+“Well, we’ll talk about that later,” I decided firmly. “Right now we’ve
+got a war on our hands. Come on, let’s get going.”
+
+But Porky didn’t look at all as thought he were ready to start. “Well,”
+he said, “that’s another thing I--er--have to tell you.” He looked very
+pleased. “I haven’t got it any more. I’ve lost it.”
+
+Baldy came to life. “What’s _that_ mean?” he demanded. “What in the
+devil haven’t you got any more? What have you lost?”
+
+“My--my gift--that’s what you called it,” Porky said. “It’s gone.
+Vanished. I can’t do it any more. I tried--honest I did--but it’s
+gone.”
+
+Lisbeth made an expressive gesture like one who wants to indicate that
+a fairy has just flown out the window.
+
+“He tried,” she said. “He really did.”
+
+“I’m no coward,” Porky added. “Didn’t I do fine last night? But it’s
+gone--I’m quite normal now.” He said that last with a very evident
+relish.
+
+“Because now your soul and heart and ego and such are all tied up with
+Lisbeth,” Baldy said sarcastically.
+
+“That’s it,” Lisbeth retorted. “And you don’t need to be sarcastic
+about it. He and I figured it all out--why would his ego want to roam
+abroad when it’s in my keeping--forever?” She and Porky were holding
+onto each other’s hands and gazing with that dying calf look. “He
+belongs to me now,” Lisbeth added. “His ego doesn’t want to go
+adventuring. Besides, if it did, I wouldn’t let it.”
+
+And there you are. I’m sorry about not being personally able to win the
+war, but you can see, there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
+
+
+[Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the July 1943 issue
+of _Science Fiction Stories_.]
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76899 ***