Read Online The Mouse That Roared by Leonard Wibberley - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Leonard Wibberley
Tags: Comedy
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place.
In view of the development of weapons against which no complete defence has yet been devised (the official announcement from the Department of Defence read) it is necessary to bring home to each and every member of the public the need for attending to his individual preservation.
The duration of the alert will be for twenty-four hours or even longer. During that time no one is to leave whatever place he or she may be in, other than to go to an air-raid shelter. Those in their homes, far from any official shelter, must stay there. Air-raid wardens, with the support of the military establishment, have instructions to see that nobody leaves his or her residence, even to search for children who may be out playing or at school, once the alarm has been sounded. It will not be permitted to leave homes or office buildings to obtain food. Restaurants, groceries, and dairies, in common with other businesses, will be closed down. Extra food should be laid in in advance.
Children in school or out playing will be taken to shelters and cared for by the Civil Defence Organization, as will adults in the open at the time of the alert.
Do not use the telephone. Jamming of lines in case of a real attack might well cause the loss of hundreds of lives through essential calls not being able to get through.
Do not turn on water faucets. A heavy demand on mains during actual attack could result in firemen being unable to deal with serious fires. Gas must be turned off. Electric current may remain connected so that the public can listen to developments on the radio.
Cars and buses on the streets at the time of the alert are to be abandoned, and the passengers are to go immediately to the nearest air-raid shelter. Subway trains are to take their passengers to the nearest station and disembark them there. The passengers will remain in the station where emergency feeding arrangements have already been established for them.
Ships in east coast harbours, capable of doing so, will proceed immediately to sea. Personnel aboard other ships will evacuate their vessels and go to air-raid shelters.
During the attack, key groups of defence workers, wearing special coverings designed to give them protection from lethal radiation, will undertake special missions. They will visit a number of key buildings in the course of these duties. They are on no account to be impeded or interfered with in any way.
Then followed a long list of things which people might do to provide for the alert, and at the end the admonition: “This is an exercise in preparing for the preservation of yourself, your community, and your nation. It is essential that you do your part.”
The warning of the coming alert was broadcast, courtesy of numerous automobile dealers, soap, soup, canned meat, furniture, and other manufacturers, every fifteen minutes twenty-four hours a day for a week. The same warning was given, at the same intervals and courtesy of much the same sponsors, over television. The Broadway regulars chuckled over the quip of a night club comedian that, “This disaster comes to you courtesy of the Cosmopolitan Life Insurance Company.” As the days passed, and the warnings continued through every medium of communication--the Press, the radio, television, the cinema, from the pulpit, and in a host of pronouncements from everyone with the slightest claim to public attention, a mild hysteria began to develop and manifest itself in a series of curious reactions.
A rumour, traced to a Brooklyn storekeeper, that salami was the only food acknowledged to be proof against atomic contamination produced such a demand for the sausage that within twenty-four hours there was not a pound of salami to be had in the whole of New York City. A case was reported from the Bronx of a man who had sold his house for two hundred pounds of salami. A food-store proprietor on Staten Island told police that a widow with eight children had offered him her baby for only five pounds of
In view of the development of weapons against which no complete defence has yet been devised (the official announcement from the Department of Defence read) it is necessary to bring home to each and every member of the public the need for attending to his individual preservation.
The duration of the alert will be for twenty-four hours or even longer. During that time no one is to leave whatever place he or she may be in, other than to go to an air-raid shelter. Those in their homes, far from any official shelter, must stay there. Air-raid wardens, with the support of the military establishment, have instructions to see that nobody leaves his or her residence, even to search for children who may be out playing or at school, once the alarm has been sounded. It will not be permitted to leave homes or office buildings to obtain food. Restaurants, groceries, and dairies, in common with other businesses, will be closed down. Extra food should be laid in in advance.
Children in school or out playing will be taken to shelters and cared for by the Civil Defence Organization, as will adults in the open at the time of the alert.
Do not use the telephone. Jamming of lines in case of a real attack might well cause the loss of hundreds of lives through essential calls not being able to get through.
Do not turn on water faucets. A heavy demand on mains during actual attack could result in firemen being unable to deal with serious fires. Gas must be turned off. Electric current may remain connected so that the public can listen to developments on the radio.
Cars and buses on the streets at the time of the alert are to be abandoned, and the passengers are to go immediately to the nearest air-raid shelter. Subway trains are to take their passengers to the nearest station and disembark them there. The passengers will remain in the station where emergency feeding arrangements have already been established for them.
Ships in east coast harbours, capable of doing so, will proceed immediately to sea. Personnel aboard other ships will evacuate their vessels and go to air-raid shelters.
During the attack, key groups of defence workers, wearing special coverings designed to give them protection from lethal radiation, will undertake special missions. They will visit a number of key buildings in the course of these duties. They are on no account to be impeded or interfered with in any way.
Then followed a long list of things which people might do to provide for the alert, and at the end the admonition: “This is an exercise in preparing for the preservation of yourself, your community, and your nation. It is essential that you do your part.”
The warning of the coming alert was broadcast, courtesy of numerous automobile dealers, soap, soup, canned meat, furniture, and other manufacturers, every fifteen minutes twenty-four hours a day for a week. The same warning was given, at the same intervals and courtesy of much the same sponsors, over television. The Broadway regulars chuckled over the quip of a night club comedian that, “This disaster comes to you courtesy of the Cosmopolitan Life Insurance Company.” As the days passed, and the warnings continued through every medium of communication--the Press, the radio, television, the cinema, from the pulpit, and in a host of pronouncements from everyone with the slightest claim to public attention, a mild hysteria began to develop and manifest itself in a series of curious reactions.
A rumour, traced to a Brooklyn storekeeper, that salami was the only food acknowledged to be proof against atomic contamination produced such a demand for the sausage that within twenty-four hours there was not a pound of salami to be had in the whole of New York City. A case was reported from the Bronx of a man who had sold his house for two hundred pounds of salami. A food-store proprietor on Staten Island told police that a widow with eight children had offered him her baby for only five pounds of
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