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FMS Digest, v. 1, issues 1-5, February - July 1941

v.1:no.5: Page 6

Page 6     F M Z DIGEST

THE HAT
By Donald A Wollheim
Condensed from POLARIS
June, 1941

I have checked this matter pretty thoroughly, even to having microscopic examinations made, and I tell you that I could not be mistaken. But it does not help to think too much about it. It is all very odd.
These refugees, you know. These days all sorts of people are being routed out of Europe. British children and German Jews are really only a small part of it. Poles, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Danes, Roumanians, Hungarians, oh, all sorts of people. But to get back to my subject.
I was sitting in a cafeteria in lower Manhatten very late in the night. it was a smallish cafeteria, not too clean, not too dirty, and not too crowded. In fact there weren't more than three or four people there, mostly having coffee and doughnuts. The time was very later, or very early depending on whether you were just up or just going to bed. About two or three in the morning.
Anyhow, as I was saying, there were only a few people there; two chaps who looked like Italisn workmen, a chap who was probably a truckdriver, and him. He was a nondescript sort of chap sitting over in one corner hunched over a paper. I never got a clear look at his face, after all who was he to me? I only remember what he looks like by afterthought.
I seem to think he had rather poor clothes on, shabby and all that. And I have an impression he was unshaven and his hair scraggly. Anyway he was sitting there reading a paper in some Slavic language or maybe it was Hungarian or Greek, I wouldn't know.
Now, nothing really happened, you understand. I hope you haven't been expecting anything from this yarn. Because all that did happen was that this guy suddenly put down his paper, looked up at the clock, muttered something under his breath and got up. he walked hastily to the cashier, plunked down a nickel and rushed out.
So what's that to me, you wonder. Nothing except he forgot his hat, a black, rather battered, fuzzy brimmed fedora, I, like the dope that I am, went over, picked off the rack and went after him, but I couldn't find him. So I came back. the greasy cashier shrugged and indicated I should leave the hat back on the rack or do what I please with it. I was going to stick it back on the rack when I noticed a number of loose hairs sticking around the fuzzy inner rim of the hat. That's nothing, too, a lot of hats would show loos hairs. only not like these.
I know hairs. And these hairs were coarse, grey-tapering-into-brown. They weren't like any human hairs. They struck me as odd and they still do.
But I said that there are all sorts of refugees flooding the country these days. What with war in Greece and in the wild country in Albania. And with trouble in the Carpathians, in Slovakia, in Ruthenia, in Bulgeria, I imagine just about everybody gets stirred up including a lot of people that the rest of the world just forgot or tried to forget.
Anyway, tests and everything confirm my first opinion. The inside of the hat was all full of wolf hairs, wild European wolf hairs, and no human ones there at all.

FROM THE STARPORT

After the first World War, Russia was a shambles. Odessa, on the Black Sea, changed hands. A British destroyer cast anchor there--cast and lost the anchor in the deep mud. A driver went down to retrieve it and was brought up by a raving maniac. He screamed of marching dead men on the harbor bottom-ragged marching men with bloated drowned faces who converged upon him with military rhythm.
Other divers went down. They, too, went mad, and some died after being hauled from the mysterious depths of Odessa Bay. All of them had seen, moving uncannily in unison and with outstretched arms--the marching dead!

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Page 6 F M Z DIGEST THE HAT By Donald A Wollheim Condensed from POLARIS June, 1941 I have checked this matter pretty thoroughly, even to having microscopic examinations made, and I tell you that I could not be mistaken. But it does not help to think too much about it. It is all very odd. These refugees, you know. These days all sorts of people are being routed out of Europe. British children and German Jews are really only a small part of it. Poles, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Danes, Roumanians, Hungarians, oh, all sorts of people. But to get back to my subject. I was sitting in a cafeteria in lower Manhatten very late in the night. it was a smallish cafeteria, not too clean, not too dirty, and not too crowded. In fact there weren't more than three or four people there, mostly having coffee and doughnuts. The time was very later, or very early depending on whether you were just up or just going to bed. About two or three in the morning. Anyhow, as I was saying, there were only a few people there; two chaps who looked like Italisn workmen, a chap who was probably a truckdriver, and him. He was a nondescript sort of chap sitting over in one corner hunched over a paper. I never got a clear look at his face, after all who was he to me? I only remember what he looks like by afterthought. I seem to think he had rather poor clothes on, shabby and all that. And I have an impression he was unshaven and his hair scraggly. Anyway he was sitting there reading a paper in some Slavic language or maybe it was Hungarian or Greek, I wouldn't know. Now, nothing really happened, you understand. I hope you haven't been expecting anything from this yarn. Because all that did happen was that this guy suddenly put down his paper, looked up at the clock, muttered something under his breath and got up. he walked hastily to the cashier, plunked down a nickel and rushed out. So what's that to me, you wonder. Nothing except he forgot his hat, a black, rather battered, fuzzy brimmed fedora, I, like the dope that I am, went over, picked off the rack and went after him, but I couldn't find him. So I came back. the greasy cashier shrugged and indicated I should leave the hat back on the rack or do what I please with it. I was going to stick it back on the rack when I noticed a number of loose hairs sticking around the fuzzy inner rim of the hat. That's nothing, too, a lot of hats would show loos hairs. only not like these. I know hairs. And these hairs were coarse, grey-tapering-into-brown. They weren't like any human hairs. They struck me as odd and they still do. But I said that there are all sorts of refugees flooding the country these days. What with war in Greece and in the wild country in Albania. And with trouble in the Carpathians, in Slovakia, in Ruthenia, in Bulgeria, I imagine just about everybody gets stirred up including a lot of people that the rest of the world just forgot or tried to forget. Anyway, tests and everything confirm my first opinion. The inside of the hat was all full of wolf hairs, wild European wolf hairs, and no human ones there at all. FROM THE STARPORT After the first World War, Russia was a shambles. Odessa, on the Black Sea, changed hands. A British destroyer cast anchor there--cast and lost the anchor in the deep mud. A driver went down to retrieve it and was brought up by a raving maniac. He screamed of marching dead men on the harbor bottom-ragged marching men with bloated drowned faces who converged upon him with military rhythm. Other divers went down. They, too, went mad, and some died after being hauled from the mysterious depths of Odessa Bay. All of them had seen, moving uncannily in unison and with outstretched arms--the marching dead!