"'THE WAR IN THE AIR\n\nBy H. G. Wells\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n I. OF PROGRESS AND THE SMALLWAYS FAMILY\n II. HOW BERT SMALLWAYS GOT INTO DIFFICULTIES\n III. THE BALLOON\n IV. THE GERMAN AIR-FLEET\n V. THE BATTLE OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC\n VI. HOW WAR CAME TO NEW YORK\n VII. THE \"VATERLAND\" IS DISABLED\n VIII. A WORLD AT WAR\n IX. ON GOAT ISLAND\n X. THE WORLD UNDER THE WAR\n XI. THE GREAT COLLAPSE\n THE EPILOGUE\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO REPRINT EDITION\n\nThe reader should grasp clearly the date at which this book was written.\nIt was done in 1907: it appeared in various magazines as a serial in\n1908 and it was published in the Fall of that year. At that time the\naeroplane was, for most people, merely a rumour and the \"Sausage\" held\nthe air. The contemporary reader has all the advantage of ten years\'\nexperience since this story was imagined. He can correct his author at a\ndozen points and estimate the value of these warnings by the standard\nof a decade of realities. The book is weak on anti-aircraft guns, for\nexample, and still more negligent of submarines. Much, no doubt, will\nstrike the reader as quaint and limited but upon much the writer may not\nunreasonably plume himself. The interpretation of the German spirit\nmust have read as a caricature in 1908. Was it a caricature? Prince\nKarl seemed a fantasy then. Reality has since copied Prince Carl with\nan astonishing faithfulness. Is it too much to hope that some democratic\n\"Bert\" may not ultimately get even with his Highness? Our author tells\nus in this book, as he has told us in others, more especially in The\nWorld Set Free, and as he has been telling us this year in his War\nand the Future, that if mankind goes on with war, the smash-up of\ncivilization is inevitable. It is chaos or the United States of the\nWorld for mankind. There is no other choice. Ten years have but added an\nenormous conviction to the message of this book. It remains essentially\nright, a pamphlet story--in support of the League to Enforce Peace. K.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE WAR IN THE AIR\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I. OF PROGRESS AND THE SMALLWAYS FAMILY\n\n\n1\n\n\"This here Progress,\" said Mr. Tom Smallways, \"it keeps on.\"\n\n\"You\'d hardly think it could keep on,\" said Mr. Tom Smallways.\n\nIt was along before the War in the Air began that Mr. Smallways made\nthis remark. He was sitting on the fence at the end of his garden and\nsurveying the great Bun Hill gas-works with an eye that neither praised\nnor blamed. Above the clustering gasometers three unfamiliar shapes\nappeared, thin, wallowing bladders that flapped and rolled about, and\ngrew bigger and bigger and rounder and rounder--balloons in course\nof inflation for the South of England Aero Club\'s Saturday-afternoon\nascent.\n\n\"They goes up every Saturday,\" said his neighbour, Mr. Stringer, the\nmilkman. \"It\'s only yestiday, so to speak, when all London turned out to\nsee a balloon go over, and now every little place in the country has\nits weekly-outings--uppings, rather. It\'s been the salvation of them gas\ncompanies.\"\n\n\"Larst Satiday I got three barrer-loads of gravel off my petaters,\" said\nMr. Tom Smallways. \"Three barrer-loads! What they dropped as ballase.\nSome of the plants was broke, and some was buried.\"\n\n\"Ladies, they say, goes up!\"\n\n\"I suppose we got to call \'em ladies,\" said Mr. Tom Smallways.\n\n\"Still, it ain\'t hardly my idea of a lady--flying about in the air, and\nthrowing gravel at people. It ain\'t what I been accustomed to consider\nladylike, whether or no.\"\n\nMr. Stringer nodded his head approvingly, and for a time they continued\nto regard the swelling bulks with expressions that had changed from\nindifference to disapproval.\n\nMr. Tom Smallways was a green-grocer by trade and a gardener by\ndisposition; his little wife Jessica saw to the shop, and Heaven had\nplanned him for a peaceful world. Unfortunately Heaven had not planned\na peaceful world for him. He lived in a world of obstinate and incessant\nchange, and in parts where its operations were unsparingly conspicuous.\nVicissitude was in the very soil he tilled; even his garden was upon a\nyearly tenancy, and overshadowed by a huge board that proclaimed it not\nso much a garden as an eligible building site. He was horticulture under\nnotice to quit, the last patch of country in a district flooded by new\nand (other) things. He did his best to console himself, to imagine\nmatters near the turn of the tide.\n\n\"You\'d hardly think it could keep on,\" he said.\n\nMr. Smallways\' aged father, could remember Bun Hill as an idyllic\nKentish village. He had driven Sir Peter Bone until he was fifty and\nthen he took to drink a little, and driving the station bus, which\nlasted him until he was seventy-eight. Then he retired. He sat by the\nfireside, a shrivelled, very, very old coachman, full charged with\nreminiscences, and ready for any careless stranger. He could tell you of\nthe vanished estate of Sir Peter Bone, long since cut up for building,\nand how that magnate ruled the country-side when it was country-side, of\nshooting and hunting, and of caches along the high road, of how \"where\nthe gas-works is\" was a cricket-field, and of the coming of the Crystal\nPalace. The Crystal Palace was six miles away from Bun Hill, a great\nfacade that glittered in the morning, and was a clear blue outline\nagainst the sky in the afternoon, and of a night, a source of gratuitous\nfireworks for all the population of Bun Hill. And then had come the\nrailway, and then villas and villas, and then the gas-works and the\nwater-works, and a great, ugly sea of workmen\'s houses, and then\ndrainage, and the water vanished out of the Otterbourne and left it a\ndreadful ditch, and then a second railway station, Bun Hill South, and\nmore houses and more, more shops, more competition, plate-glass shops,\na school-board, rates, omnibuses, tramcars--going right away into\nLondon itself--bicycles, motor-cars and then more motor-cars, a Carnegie\nlibrary.\n\n\"You\'d hardly think it could keep on,\" said Mr. Tom Smallways, growing\nup among these marvels.\n\nBut it kept on. Even from the first the green-grocer\'s shop which he had\nset up in one of the smallest of the old surviving village houses in\nthe tail of the High Street had a submerged air, an air of hiding from\nsomething that was looking for it. When they had made up the pavement of\nthe High Street, they levelled that up so that one had to go down three\nsteps into the shop. Tom did his best to sell only his own excellent\nbut limited range of produce; but Progress came shoving things into his\nwindow, French artichokes and aubergines, foreign apples--apples from\nthe State of New York, apples from California, apples from Canada,\napples from New Zealand, \"pretty lookin\' fruit, but not what I should\ncall English apples,\" said Tom--bananas, unfamiliar nuts, grape fruits,\nmangoes.\n\nThe motor-cars that went by northward and southward grew more and more\npowerful and efficient, whizzed faster and smelt worse, there appeared\ngreat clangorous petrol trolleys delivering coal and parcels in\nthe place of vanishing horse-vans, motor-omnibuses ousted the\nhorse-omnibuses, even the Kentish strawberries going Londonward in the\nnight took to machinery and clattered instead of creaking, and became\naffected in flavour by progress and petrol.\n\nAnd then young Bert Smallways got a motor bicycle....\n\n2\n\nBert, it is necessary to explain, was a progressive Smallways.\n\nNothing speaks more eloquently of the pitiless insistence of progress\nand expansion in our time than that it should get into the Smallways\nblood. But there was something advanced and enterprising about young\nSmallways before he was out of short frocks. He was lost for a whole\nday before he was five, and nearly drowned in the reservoir of the new\nwater-works before he was seven. He had a real pistol taken away from\nhim by a real policeman when he was ten. And he learnt to smoke, not\nwith pipes and brown paper and cane as Tom had done, but with a penny\npacket of Boys of England American cigarettes. His language shocked\nhis father before he was twelve, and by that age, what with touting for\nparcels at the station and selling the Bun Hill Weekly Express, he was\nmaking three shillings a week, or more, and spending it on Chips, Comic\nCuts, Ally Sloper\'s Half-holiday, cigarettes, and all the concomitants\nof a life of pleasure and enlightenment. All of this without hindrance\nto his literary studies, which carried him up to the seventh standard at\nan exceptionally early age. I mention these things so that you may have\nno doubt at all concerning the sort of stuff Bert had in him.\n\nHe was six years younger than Tom, and for a time there was an attempt\nto utilise him in the green-grocer\'s shop when Tom at twenty-one married\nJessica--who was thirty, and had saved a little money in service. But it\nwas not Bert\'s forte to be utilised. He hated digging, and when he\nwas given a basket of stuff to deliver, a nomadic instinct arose\nirresistibly, it became his pack and he did not seem to care how heavy\nit was nor where he took it, so long as he did not take it to its\ndestination. Glamour filled the world, and he strayed after it, basket\nand all. So Tom took his goods out himself, and sought employers for\nBert who did not know of this strain of poetry in his nature. And Bert\ntouched the fringe of a number of trades in succession--draper\'s porter,\nchemist\'s boy, doctor\'s page, junior assistant gas-fitter, envelope\naddresser, milk-cart assistant, golf caddie, and at last helper in a\nbicycle shop. Here, apparently, he found the progressive quality his\nnature had craved. His employer was a pirate-souled young man named\nGrubb, with a black-smeared face by day, and a music-hall side in the\nevening, who dreamt of a patent lever chain; and it seemed to Bert that\nhe was the perfect model of a gentleman of spirit. He hired out quite\nthe dirtiest and unsafest bicycles in the whole south of England, and\nconducted the subsequent discussions with astonishing verve. Bert and\nhe settled down very well together. Bert lived in, became almost a trick\nrider--he could ride bicycles for miles that would have come to pieces\ninstantly under you or me--took to washing his face after business, and\nspent his surplus money upon remarkable ties and collars, cigarettes,\nand shorthand classes at the Bun Hill Institute.\n\nHe would go round to Tom at times, and look and talk so brilliantly\nthat Tom and Jessie, who both had a natural tendency to be respectful to\nanybody or anything, looked up to him immensely.\n\n\"He\'s a go-ahead chap, is Bert,\" said Tom. \"He knows a thing or two.\"\n\n\"Let\'s hope he don\'t know too much,\" said Jessica, who had a fine sense\nof limitations.\n\n\"It\'s go-ahead Times,\" said Tom. \"Noo petaters, and English at that;\nwe\'ll be having \'em in March if things go on as they do go. I never see\nsuch Times. See his tie last night?\"\n\n\"It wasn\'t suited to him, Tom. It was a gentleman\'s tie. He wasn\'t up to\nit--not the rest of him, It wasn\'t becoming\"...\n\nThen presently Bert got a cyclist\'s suit, cap, badge, and all; and\nto see him and Grubb going down to Brighton (and back)--heads\ndown, handle-bars down, backbones curved--was a revelation in the\npossibilities of the Smallways blood.\n\nGo-ahead Times!\n\nOld Smallways would sit over the fire mumbling of the greatness of other\ndays, of old Sir Peter, who drove his coach to Brighton and back in\neight-and-twenty hours, of old Sir Peter\'s white top-hats, of Lady Bone,\nwho never set foot to ground except to walk in the garden, of the great,\nprize-fights at Crawley. He talked of pink and pig-skin breeches, of\nfoxes at Ring\'s Bottom, where now the County Council pauper lunatics\nwere enclosed, of Lady Bone\'s chintzes and crinolines. Nobody heeded\nhim. The world had thrown up a new type of gentleman altogether--a\ngentleman of most ungentlemanly energy, a gentleman in dusty oilskins\nand motor goggles and a wonderful cap, a stink-making gentleman, a\nswift, high-class badger, who fled perpetually along high roads from the\ndust and stink he perpetually made. And his lady, as they were able\nto see her at Bun Hill, was a weather-bitten goddess, as free from\nrefinement as a gipsy--not so much dressed as packed for transit at a\nhigh velocity.\n\nSo Bert grew up, filled with ideals of speed and enterprise, and\nbecame, so far as he became anything, a kind of bicycle engineer of the\nlet\'s-have-a-look-at-it and enamel chipping variety. Even a road-racer,\ngeared to a hundred and twenty, failed to satisfy him, and for a time he\npined in vain at twenty miles an hour along roads that were continually\nmore dusty and more crowded with mechanical traffic. But at last his\nsavings accumulated, and his chance came. The hire-purchase system\nbridged a financial gap, and one bright and memorable Sunday morning he\nwheeled his new possession through the shop into the road, got on to it\nwith the advice and assistance of Grubb, and teuf-teuffed off into\nthe haze of the traffic-tortured high road, to add himself as one more\nvoluntary public danger to the amenities of the south of England.\n\n\"Orf to Brighton!\" said old Smallways, regarding his youngest son from\nthe sitting-room window over the green-grocer\'s shop with something\nbetween pride and reprobation. \"When I was \'is age, I\'d never been to\nLondon, never bin south of Crawley--never bin anywhere on my own where\nI couldn\'t walk. And nobody didn\'t go. Not unless they was gentry. Now\nevery body\'s orf everywhere; the whole dratted country sims flying to\npieces. Wonder they all get back. Orf to Brighton indeed! Anybody want\nto buy \'orses?\"\n\n\"You can\'t say _I_ bin to Brighton, father,\" said Tom.\n\n\"Nor don\'t want to go,\" said Jessica sharply; \"creering about and\nspendin\' your money.\"\n\n3\n\nFor a time the possibilities of the motor-bicycle so occupied Bert\'s\nmind that he remained regardless of the new direction in which the\nstriving soul of man was finding exercise and refreshment. He failed\nto observe that the type of motor-car, like the type of bicycle, was\nsettling-down and losing its adventurous quality. Indeed, it is as\ntrue as it is remarkable that Tom was the first to observe the new\ndevelopment. But his gardening made him attentive to the heavens, and\nthe proximity of the Bun Hill gas-works and the Crystal Palace, from\nwhich ascents were continually being made, and presently the descent of\nballast upon his potatoes, conspired to bear in upon his unwilling mind\nthe fact that the Goddess of Change was turning her disturbing attention\nto the sky. The first great boom in aeronautics was beginning.\n\nGrubb and Bert heard of it in a music-hall, then it was driven home to\ntheir minds by the cinematograph, then Bert\'s imagination was stimulated\nby a sixpenny edition of that aeronautic classic, Mr. George Griffith\'s\n\"Clipper of the Clouds,\" and so the thing really got hold of them.\n\nAt first the most obvious aspect was the multiplication of balloons.\nThe sky of Bun Hill began to be infested by balloons. On Wednesday and\nSaturday afternoons particularly you could scarcely look skyward for a\nquarter of an hour without discovering a balloon somewhere. And then one\nbright day Bert, motoring toward Croydon, was arrested by the insurgence\nof a huge, bolster-shaped monster from the Crystal Palace grounds, and\nobliged to dismount and watch it. It was like a bolster with a broken\nnose, and below it, and comparatively small, was a stiff framework\nbearing a man and an engine with a screw that whizzed round in front and\na sort of canvas rudder behind. The framework had an air of dragging the\nreluctant gas-cylinder after it like a brisk little terrier towing a\nshy gas-distended elephant into society. The combined monster certainly\ntravelled and steered. It went overhead perhaps a thousand feet up\n(Bert heard the engine), sailed away southward, vanished over the hills,\nreappeared a little blue outline far off in the east, going now very\nfast before a gentle south-west gale, returned above the Crystal Palace\ntowers, circled round them, chose a position for descent, and sank down\nout of sight.\n\nBert sighed deeply, and turned to his motor-bicycle again.\n\nAnd that was only the beginning of a succession of strange phenomena\nin the heavens--cylinders, cones, pear-shaped monsters, even at last a\nthing of aluminium that glittered wonderfully, and that Grubb, through\nsome confusion of ideas about armour plates, was inclined to consider a\nwar machine.\n\nThere followed actual flight.\n\nThis, however, was not an affair that was visible from Bun Hill; it was\nsomething that occurred in private grounds or other enclosed places and,\nunder favourable conditions, and it was brought home to Grubb and\nBert Smallways only by means of the magazine page of the half-penny\nnewspapers or by cinematograph records. But it was brought home very\ninsistently, and in those days if, ever one heard a man saying in a\npublic place in a loud, reassuring, confident tone, \"It\'s bound to\ncome,\" the chances were ten to one he was talking of flying. And Bert\ngot a box lid and wrote out in correct window-ticket style, and Grubb\nput in the window this inscription, \"Aeroplanes made and repaired.\" It\nquite upset Tom--it seemed taking one\'s shop so lightly; but most of the\nneighbours, and all the sporting ones, approved of it as being very good\nindeed.\n\nEverybody talked of flying, everybody repeated over and over again,\n\"Bound to come,\" and then you know it didn\'t come. There was a hitch.\nThey flew--that was all right; they flew in machines heavier than air.\nBut they smashed. Sometimes they smashed the engine, sometimes they\nsmashed the aeronaut, usually they smashed both. Machines that made\nflights of three or four miles and came down safely, went up the next\ntime to headlong disaster. There seemed no possible trusting to them.\nThe breeze upset them, the eddies near the ground upset them, a passing\nthought in the mind of the aeronaut upset them. Also they upset--simply.\n\n\"It\'s this \'stability\' does \'em,\" said Grubb, repeating his newspaper.\n\"They pitch and they pitch, till they pitch themselves to pieces.\"\n\nExperiments fell away after two expectant years of this sort of success,\nthe public and then the newspapers tired of the expensive photographic\nreproductions, the optimistic reports, the perpetual sequence of triumph\nand disaster and silence. Flying slumped, even ballooning fell away to\nsome extent, though it remained a fairly popular sport, and continued\nto lift gravel from the wharf of the Bun Hill gas-works and drop it upon\ndeserving people\'s lawns and gardens. There were half a dozen reassuring\nyears for Tom--at least so far as flying was concerned. But that was the\ngreat time of mono-rail development, and his anxiety was only diverted\nfrom the high heavens by the most urgent threats and symptoms of change\nin the lower sky.\n\nThere had been talk of mono-rails for several years. But the real\nmischief began when Brennan sprang his gyroscopic mono-rail car upon the\nRoyal Society. It was the leading sensation of the 1907 soirees; that\ncelebrated demonstration-room was all too small for its exhibition.\nBrave soldiers, leading Zionists, deserving novelists, noble ladies,\ncongested the narrow passage and thrust distinguished elbows into ribs\nthe world would not willingly let break, deeming themselves fortunate\nif they could see \"just a little bit of the rail.\" Inaudible, but\nconvincing, the great inventor expounded his discovery, and sent his\nobedient little model of the trains of the future up gradients, round\ncurves, and across a sagging wire. It ran along its single rail, on its\nsingle wheels, simple and sufficient; it stopped, reversed stood still,\nbalancing perfectly. It maintained its astounding equilibrium amidst a\nthunder of applause. The audience dispersed at last, discussing how\nfar they would enjoy crossing an abyss on a wire cable. \"Suppose the\ngyroscope stopped!\" Few of them anticipated a tithe of what the Brennan\nmono-rail would do for their railway securities and the face of the\nworld.\n\nIn a few, years they realised better. In a little while no one\nthought anything of crossing an abyss on a wire, and the mono-rail was\nsuperseding the tram-lines, railways: and indeed every form of track\nfor mechanical locomotion. Where land was cheap the rail ran along\nthe ground, where it was dear the rail lifted up on iron standards and\npassed overhead; its swift, convenient cars went everywhere and did\neverything that had once been done along made tracks upon the ground.\n\nWhen old Smallways died, Tom could think of nothing more striking to say\nof him than that, \"When he was a boy, there wasn\'t nothing higher than\nyour chimbleys--there wasn\'t a wire nor a cable in the sky!\"\n\nOld Smallways went to his grave under an intricate network of wires and\ncables, for Bun Hill became not only a sort of minor centre of power\ndistribution--the Home Counties Power Distribution Company set\nup transformers and a generating station close beside the old\ngas-works--but, also a junction on the suburban mono-rail system.\nMoreover, every tradesman in the place, and indeed nearly every house,\nhad its own telephone.\n\nThe mono-rail cable standard became a striking fact in urban landscape,\nfor the most part stout iron erections rather like tapering trestles,\nand painted a bright bluish green. One, it happened, bestrode Tom\'s\nhouse, which looked still more retiring and apologetic beneath its\nimmensity; and another giant stood just inside the corner of his garden,\nwhich was still not built upon and unchanged, except for a couple of\nadvertisement boards, one recommending a two-and-sixpenny watch, and one\na nerve restorer. These, by the bye, were placed almost horizontally to\ncatch the eye of the passing mono-rail passengers above, and so served\nadmirably to roof over a tool-shed and a mushroom-shed for Tom. All day\nand all night the fast cars from Brighton and Hastings went murmuring by\noverhead long, broad, comfortable-looking cars, that were brightly lit\nafter dusk. As they flew by at night, transient flares of light and a\nrumbling sound of passage, they kept up a perpetual summer lightning and\nthunderstorm in the street below.\n\nPresently the English Channel was bridged--a series of great iron Eiffel\nTower pillars carrying mono-rail cables at a height of a hundred and\nfifty feet above the water, except near the middle, where they rose\nhigher to allow the passage of the London and Antwerp shipping and the\nHamburg-America liners.\n\nThen heavy motor-cars began to run about on only a couple of wheels, one\nbehind the other, which for some reason upset Tom dreadfully, and made\nhim gloomy for days after the first one passed the shop...\n\nAll this gyroscopic and mono-rail development naturally absorbed a\nvast amount of public attention, and there was also a huge excitement\nconsequent upon the amazing gold discoveries off the coast of Anglesea\nmade by a submarine prospector, Miss Patricia Giddy. She had taken her\ndegree in geology and mineralogy in the University of London, and while\nworking upon the auriferous rocks of North Wales, after a brief holiday\nspent in agitating for women\'s suffrage, she had been struck by the\npossibility of these reefs cropping up again under the water. She had\nset herself to verify this supposition by the use of the submarine\ncrawler invented by Doctor Alberto Cassini. By a happy mingling of\nreasoning and intuition peculiar to her sex she found gold at her\nfirst descent, and emerged after three hours\' submersion with about two\nhundredweight of ore containing gold in the unparalleled quantity\nof seventeen ounces to the ton. But the whole story of her submarine\nmining, intensely interesting as it is, must be told at some other time;\nsuffice it now to remark simply that it was during the consequent great\nrise of prices, confidence, and enterprise that the revival of interest\nin flying occurred.\n\nIt is curious how that revival began. It was like the coming of a breeze\non a quiet day; nothing started it, it came. People began to talk of\nflying with an air of never having for one moment dropped the subject.\nPictures of flying and flying machines returned to the newspapers;\narticles and allusions increased and multiplied in the serious\nmagazines. People asked in mono-rail trains, \"When are we going to fly?\"\nA new crop of inventors sprang up in a night or so like fungi. The Aero\nClub announced the project of a great Flying Exhibition in a large\narea of ground that the removal of slums in Whitechapel had rendered\navailable.\n\nThe advancing wave soon produced a sympathetic ripple in the Bun Hill\nestablishment. Grubb routed out his flying-machine model again, tried it\nin the yard behind the shop, got a kind of flight out of it, and broke\nseventeen panes of glass and nine flower-pots in the greenhouse that\noccupied the next yard but one.\n\nAnd then, springing from nowhere, sustained one knew not how, came a\npersistent, disturbing rumour that the problem had been solved, that\nthe secret was known. Bert met it one early-closing afternoon as he\nrefreshed himself in an inn near Nutfield, whither his motor-bicycle had\nbrought him. There smoked and meditated a person in khaki, an engineer,\nwho presently took an interest in Bert\'s machine. It was a sturdy piece\nof apparatus, and it had acquired a kind of documentary value in these\nquick-changing times; it was now nearly eight years old. Its points\ndiscussed, the soldier broke into a new topic with, \"My next\'s going\nto be an aeroplane, so far as I can see. I\'ve had enough of roads and\nways.\"\n\n\"They TORK,\" said Bert.\n\n\"They talk--and they do,\" said the soldier.\n\n\"The thing\'s coming--\"\n\n\"It keeps ON coming,\" said Bert; \"I shall believe when I see it.\"\n\n\"That won\'t be long,\" said the soldier.\n\nThe conversation seemed degenerating into an amiable wrangle of\ncontradiction.\n\n\"I tell you they ARE flying,\" the soldier insisted. \"I see it myself.\"\n\n\"We\'ve all seen it,\" said Bert.\n\n\"I don\'t mean flap up and smash up; I mean real, safe, steady,\ncontrolled flying, against the wind, good and right.\"\n\n\"You ain\'t seen that!\"\n\n\"I \'AVE! Aldershot. They try to keep it a secret. They got it right\nenough. You bet--our War Office isn\'t going to be caught napping this\ntime.\"\n\nBert\'s incredulity was shaken. He asked questions--and the soldier\nexpanded.\n\n\"I tell you they got nearly a square mile fenced in--a sort of valley.\nFences of barbed wire ten feet high, and inside that they do things.\nChaps about the camp--now and then we get a peep. It isn\'t only\nus neither. There\'s the Japanese; you bet they got it too--and the\nGermans!\"\n\nThe soldier stood with his legs very wide apart, and filled his pipe\nthoughtfully. Bert sat on the low wall against which his motor-bicycle\nwas leaning.\n\n\"Funny thing fighting\'ll be,\" he said.\n\n\"Flying\'s going to break out,\" said the soldier. \"When it DOES come,\nwhen the curtain does go up, I tell you you\'ll find every one on the\nstage--busy.... Such fighting, too!... I suppose you don\'t read the\npapers about this sort of thing?\"\n\n\"I read \'em a bit,\" said Bert.\n\n\"Well, have you noticed what one might call the remarkable case of\nthe disappearing inventor--the inventor who turns up in a blaze of\npublicity, fires off a few successful experiments, and vanishes?\"\n\n\"Can\'t say I \'ave,\" said Bert.\n\n\"Well, I \'ave, anyhow. You get anybody come along who does anything\nstriking in this line, and, you bet, he vanishes. Just goes off quietly\nout of sight. After a bit, you don\'t hear anything more of \'em at all.\nSee? They disappear. Gone--no address. First--oh! it\'s an old story\nnow--there was those Wright Brothers out in America. They glided--they\nglided miles and miles. Finally they glided off stage. Why, it must be\nnineteen hundred and four, or five, THEY vanished! Then there was those\npeople in Ireland--no, I forget their names. Everybody said they could\nfly. THEY went. They ain\'t dead that I\'ve heard tell; but you can\'t say\nthey\'re alive. Not a feather of \'em can you see. Then that chap who flew\nround Paris and upset in the Seine. De Booley, was it? I forget. That\nwas a grand fly, in spite of the accident; but where\'s he got to? The\naccident didn\'t hurt him. Eh? _\'E_\'s gone to cover.\"\n\nThe soldier prepared to light his pipe.\n\n\"Looks like a secret society got hold of them,\" said Bert.\n\n\"Secret society! NAW!\"\n\nThe soldier lit his match, and drew. \"Secret society,\" he repeated, with\nhis pipe between his teeth and the match flaring, in response to his\nwords. \"War Departments; that\'s more like it.\" He threw his match aside,\nand walked to his machine. \"I tell you, sir,\" he said, \"there isn\'t a\nbig Power in Europe, OR Asia, OR America, OR Africa, that hasn\'t got\nat least one or two flying machines hidden up its sleeve at the present\ntime. Not one. Real, workable, flying machines. And the spying! The\nspying and manoeuvring to find out what the others have got. I tell you,\nsir, a foreigner, or, for the matter of that, an unaccredited native,\ncan\'t get within four miles of Lydd nowadays--not to mention our little\ncircus at Aldershot, and the experimental camp in Galway. No!\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Bert, \"I\'d like to see one of them, anyhow. Jest to help\nbelieving. I\'ll believe when I see, that I\'ll promise you.\"\n\n\"You\'ll see \'em, fast enough,\" said the soldier, and led his machine out\ninto the road.\n\nHe left Bert on his wall, grave and pensive, with his cap on the back of\nhis head, and a cigarette smouldering in the corner of his mouth.\n\n\"If what he says is true,\" said Bert, \"me and Grubb, we been wasting our\nblessed old time. Besides incurring expense with that green-\'ouse.\"\n\n5\n\nIt was while this mysterious talk with the soldier still stirred in Bert\nSmallways\' imagination that the most astounding incident in the whole of\nthat dramatic chapter of human history, the coming of flying,\noccurred. People talk glibly enough of epoch-making events; this was\nan epoch-making event. It was the unanticipated and entirely successful\nflight of Mr. Alfred Butteridge from the Crystal Palace to Glasgow\nand back in a small businesslike-looking machine heavier than air--an\nentirely manageable and controllable machine that could fly as well as a\npigeon.\n\nIt wasn\'t, one felt, a fresh step forward in the matter so much as a\ngiant stride, a leap. Mr. Butteridge remained in the air altogether\nfor about nine hours, and during that time he flew with the ease and\nassurance of a bird. His machine was, however neither bird-like nor\nbutterfly-like, nor had it the wide, lateral expansion of the ordinary\naeroplane. The effect upon the observer was rather something in the\nnature of a bee or wasp. Parts of the apparatus were spinning very\nrapidly, and gave one a hazy effect of transparent wings; but parts,\nincluding two peculiarly curved \"wing-cases\"--if one may borrow a figure\nfrom the flying beetles--remained expanded stiffly. In the middle was\na long rounded body like the body of a moth, and on this Mr. Butteridge\ncould be seen sitting astride, much as a man bestrides a horse. The\nwasp-like resemblance was increased by the fact that the apparatus\nflew with a deep booming hum, exactly the sound made by a wasp at a\nwindowpane.\n\nMr. Butteridge took the world by surprise. He was one of those gentlemen\nfrom nowhere Fate still succeeds in producing for the stimulation of\nmankind. He came, it was variously said, from Australia and America and\nthe South of France. He was also described quite incorrectly as the son\nof a man who had amassed a comfortable fortune in the manufacture of\ngold nibs and the Butteridge fountain pens. But this was an entirely\ndifferent strain of Butteridges. For some years, in spite of a loud\nvoice, a large presence, an aggressive swagger, and an implacable\nmanner, he had been an undistinguished member of most of the existing\naeronautical associations. Then one day he wrote to all the London\npapers to announce that he had made arrangements for an ascent from the\nCrystal Palace of a machine that would demonstrate satisfactorily that\nthe outstanding difficulties in the way of flying were finally solved.\nFew of the papers printed his letter, still fewer were the people who\nbelieved in his claim. No one was excited even when a fracas on the\nsteps of a leading hotel in Piccadilly, in which he tried to horse-whip\na prominent German musician upon some personal account, delayed his\npromised ascent. The quarrel was inadequately reported, and his name\nspelt variously Betteridge and Betridge. Until his flight indeed, he\ndid not and could not contrive to exist in the public mind. There were\nscarcely thirty people on the look-out for him, in spite of all his\nclamour, when about six o\'clock one summer morning the doors of the big\nshed in which he had been putting together his apparatus opened--it was\nnear the big model of a megatherium in the Crystal Palace grounds--and\nhis giant insect came droning out into a negligent and incredulous\nworld.\n\nBut before he had made his second circuit of the Crystal Palace towers,\nFame was lifting her trumpet, she drew a deep breath as the startled\ntramps who sleep on the seats of Trafalgar Square were roused by his\nbuzz and awoke to discover him circling the Nelson column, and by the\ntime he had got to Birmingham, which place he crossed about half-past\nten, her deafening blast was echoing throughout the country. The\ndespaired-of thing was done.\n\nA man was flying securely and well.\n\nScotland was agape for his coming. Glasgow he reached by one o\'clock,\nand it is related that scarcely a ship-yard or factory in that busy hive\nof industry resumed work before half-past two. The public mind was just\nsufficiently educated in the impossibility of flying to appreciate Mr.\nButteridge at his proper value. He circled the University buildings, and\ndropped to within shouting distance of the crowds in West End Park and\non the slope of Gilmorehill. The thing flew quite steadily at a pace\nof about three miles an hour, in a wide circle, making a deep hum that,\nwould have drowned his full, rich voice completely had he not provided\nhimself with a megaphone. He avoided churches, buildings, and mono-rail\ncables with consummate ease as he conversed.\n\n\"Me name\'s Butteridge,\" he shouted; \"B-U-T-T-E-R-I-D-G-E.--Got it? Me\nmother was Scotch.\"\n\nAnd having assured himself that he had been understood, he rose amidst\ncheers and shouting and patriotic cries, and then flew up very swiftly\nand easily into the south-eastern sky, rising and falling with long,\neasy undulations in an extraordinarily wasp-like manner.\n\nHis return to London--he visited and hovered over Manchester and\nLiverpool and Oxford on his way, and spelt his name out to each\nplace--was an occasion of unparalleled excitement. Every one was staring\nheavenward. More people were run over in the streets upon that one day,\nthan in the previous three months, and a County Council steamboat, the\nIsaac Walton, collided with a pier of Westminster Bridge, and narrowly\nescaped disaster by running ashore--it was low water--on the mud on\nthe south side. He returned to the Crystal Palace grounds, that classic\nstarting-point of aeronautical adventure, about sunset, re-entered his\nshed without disaster, and had the doors locked immediately upon the\nphotographers and journalists who been waiting his return.\n\n\"Look here, you chaps,\" he said, as his assistant did so, \"I\'m tired to\ndeath, and saddle sore. I can\'t give you a word of talk. I\'m too--done.\nMy name\'s Butteridge. B-U-T-T-E-R-I-D-G-E. Get that right. I\'m an\nImperial Englishman. I\'ll talk to you all to-morrow.\"\n\nFoggy snapshots still survive to record that incident. His assistant\nstruggles in a sea of aggressive young men carrying note-books or\nupholding cameras and wearing bowler hats and enterprising ties. He\nhimself towers up in the doorway, a big figure with a mouth--an eloquent\ncavity beneath a vast black moustache--distorted by his shout to these\nrelentless agents of publicity. He towers there, the most famous man in\nthe country.\n\nAlmost symbolically he holds and gesticulates with a megaphone in his\nleft hand.\n\n6\n\nTom and Bert Smallways both saw that return. They watched from the crest\nof Bun Hill, from which they had so often surveyed the pyrotechnics of\nthe Crystal Palace. Bert was excited, Tom kept calm and lumpish, but\nneither of them realised how their own lives were to be invaded by the\nfruits of that beginning. \"P\'raps old Grubb\'ll mind the shop a bit now,\"\nhe said, \"and put his blessed model in the fire. Not that that can save\nus, if we don\'t tide over with Steinhart\'s account.\"\n\nBert knew enough of things and the problem of aeronautics to realise\nthat this gigantic imitation of a bee would, to use his own idiom, \"give\nthe newspapers fits.\" The next day it was clear the fits had been given\neven as he said: their magazine pages were black with hasty photographs,\ntheir prose was convulsive, they foamed at the headline. The next day\nthey were worse. Before the week was out they were not so much published\nas carried screaming into the street.\n\nThe dominant fact in the uproar was the exceptional personality of Mr.\nButteridge, and the extraordinary terms he demanded for the secret of\nhis machine.\n\nFor it was a secret and he kept it secret in the most elaborate fashion.\nHe built his apparatus himself in the safe privacy of the great Crystal\nPalace sheds, with the assistance of inattentive workmen, and the day\nnext following his flight he took it to pieces single handed, packed\ncertain portions, and then secured unintelligent assistance in packing\nand dispersing the rest. Sealed packing-cases went north and east and\nwest to various pantechnicons, and the engines were boxed with peculiar\ncare. It became evident these precautions were not inadvisable in view\nof the violent demand for any sort of photograph or impressions of\nhis machine. But Mr. Butteridge, having once made his demonstration,\nintended to keep his secret safe from any further risk of leakage. He\nfaced the British public now with the question whether they wanted his\nsecret or not; he was, he said perpetually, an \"Imperial Englishman,\"\nand his first wish and his last was to see his invention the privilege\nand monopoly of the Empire. Only--\n\nIt was there the difficulty began.\n\nMr. Butteridge, it became evident, was a man singularly free from any\nfalse modesty--indeed, from any modesty of any kind--singularly willing\nto see interviewers, answer questions upon any topic except aeronautics,\nvolunteer opinions, criticisms, and autobiography, supply portraits and\nphotographs of himself, and generally spread his personality across\nthe terrestrial sky. The published portraits insisted primarily upon an\nimmense black moustache, and secondarily upon a fierceness behind the\nmoustache. The general impression upon the public was that Butteridge,\nwas a small man. No one big, it was felt, could have so virulently\naggressive an expression, though, as a matter of fact, Butteridge had a\nheight of six feet two inches, and a weight altogether proportionate to\nthat. Moreover, he had a love affair of large and unusual dimensions and\nirregular circumstances and the still largely decorous British public\nlearnt with reluctance and alarm that a sympathetic treatment of this\naffair was inseparable from the exclusive acquisition of the priceless\nsecret of aerial stability by the British Empire. The exact particulars\nof the similarity never came to light, but apparently the lady had, in\na fit of high-minded inadvertence, had gone through the ceremony\nof marriage with, one quotes the unpublished discourse of Mr.\nButteridge--\"a white-livered skunk,\" and this zoological aberration did\nin some legal and vexatious manner mar her social happiness. He wanted\nto talk about the business, to show the splendour of her nature in the\nlight of its complications. It was really most embarrassing to a press\nthat has always possessed a considerable turn for reticence, that wanted\nthings personal indeed in the modern fashion. Yet not too personal.\nIt was embarrassing, I say, to be inexorably confronted with\nMr. Butteridge\'s great heart, to see it laid open in relentlesss\nself-vivisection, and its pulsating dissepiments adorned with emphatic\nflag labels.\n\nConfronted they were, and there was no getting away from it. He\nwould make this appalling viscus beat and throb before the shrinking\njournalists--no uncle with a big watch and a little baby ever harped\nupon it so relentlessly; whatever evasion they attempted he set aside.\nHe \"gloried in his love,\" he said, and compelled them to write it down.\n\n\"That\'s of course a private affair, Mr. Butteridge,\" they would object.\n\n\"The injustice, sorr, is public. I do not care either I am up against\ninstitutions or individuals. I do not care if I am up against the\nuniversal All. I am pleading the cause of a woman, a woman I lurve,\nsorr--a noble woman--misunderstood. I intend to vindicate her, sorr, to\nthe four winds of heaven!\"\n\n\"I lurve England,\" he used to say--\"lurve England, but Puritanism, sorr,\nI abhor. It fills me with loathing. It raises my gorge. Take my own\ncase.\"\n\nHe insisted relentlessly upon his heart, and upon seeing proofs of the\ninterview. If they had not done justice to his erotic bellowings and\ngesticulations, he stuck in, in a large inky scrawl, all and more than\nthey had omitted.\n\nIt was a strangely embarrassing thing for British journalism. Never was\nthere a more obvious or uninteresting affair; never had the world heard\nthe story of erratic affection with less appetite or sympathy. On the\nother hand it was extremely curious about Mr. Butteridge\'s invention.\nBut when Mr. Butteridge could be deflected for a moment from the cause\nof the lady he championed, then he talked chiefly, and usually\nwith tears of tenderness in his voice, about his mother and his\nchildhood--his mother who crowned a complete encyclopedia of maternal\nvirtue by being \"largely Scotch.\" She was not quite neat, but nearly so.\n\"I owe everything in me to me mother,\" he asserted--\"everything. Eh!\"\nand--\"ask any man who\'s done anything. You\'ll hear the same story. All\nwe have we owe to women. They are the species, sorr. Man is but a dream.\nHe comes and goes. The woman\'s soul leadeth us upward and on!\"\n\nHe was always going on like that.\n\nWhat in particular he wanted from the Government for his secret did not\nappear, nor what beyond a money payment could be expected from a modern\nstate in such an affair. The general effect upon judicious observers,\nindeed, was not that he was treating for anything, but that he was using\nan unexampled opportunity to bellow and show off to an attentive world.\nRumours of his real identity spread abroad. It was said that he had been\nthe landlord of an ambiguous hotel in Cape Town, and had there given\nshelter to, and witnessed, the experiments and finally stolen the papers\nand plans of, an extremely shy and friendless young inventor named\nPalliser, who had come to South Africa from England in an advanced stage\nof consumption, and died there. This, at any rate, was the allegation\nof the more outspoken American press. But the proof or disproof of that\nnever reached the public.\n\nMr. Butteridge also involved himself passionately in a tangle of\ndisputes for the possession of a great number of valuable money prizes.\nSome of these had been offered so long ago as 1906 for successful\nmechanical flight. By the time of Mr. Butteridge\'s success a really\nvery considerable number of newspapers, tempted by the impunity of the\npioneers in this direction, had pledged themselves to pay in some cases,\nquite overwhelming sums to the first person to fly from Manchester to\nGlasgow, from London to Manchester, one hundred miles, two hundred\nmiles in England, and the like. Most had hedged a little with ambiguous\nconditions, and now offered resistance; one or two paid at once, and\nvehemently called attention to the fact; and Mr. Butteridge plunged into\nlitigation with the more recalcitrant, while at the same time sustaining\na vigorous agitation and canvass to induce the Government to purchase\nhis invention.\n\nOne fact, however, remained permanent throughout all the developments of\nthis affair behind Butteridge\'s preposterous love interest, his politics\nand personality, and all his shouting and boasting, and that was that,\nso far as the mass of people knew, he was in sole possession of the\nsecret of the practicable aeroplane in which, for all one could tell\nto the contrary, the key of the future empire of the world resided. And\npresently, to the great consternation of innumerable people, including\namong others Mr. Bert Smallways, it became apparent that whatever\nnegotiations were in progress for the acquisition of this precious\nsecret by the British Government were in danger of falling through. The\nLondon Daily Requiem first voiced the universal alarm, and published\nan interview under the terrific caption of, \"Mr. Butteridge Speaks his\nMind.\"\n\nTherein the inventor--if he was an inventor--poured out his heart.\n\n\"I came from the end of the earth,\" he said, which rather seemed to\nconfirm the Cape Town story, \"bringing me Motherland the secret that\nwould give her the empire of the world. And what do I get?\" He paused.\n\"I am sniffed at by elderly mandarins!... And the woman I love is\ntreated like a leper!\"\n\n\"I am an Imperial Englishman,\" he went on in a splendid outburst,\nsubsequently written into the interview by his own hand; \"but there\nthere are limits to the human heart! There are younger nations--living\nnations! Nations that do not snore and gurgle helplessly in paroxysms\nof plethora upon beds of formality and red tape! There are nations that\nwill not fling away the empire of earth in order to slight an unknown\nman and insult a noble woman whose boots they are not fitted to unlatch.\nThere are nations not blinded to Science, not given over hand and foot\nto effete snobocracies and Degenerate Decadents. In short, mark my\nwords--THERE ARE OTHER NATIONS!\"\n\nThis speech it was that particularly impressed Bert Smallways. \"If them\nGermans or them Americans get hold of this,\" he said impressively to\nhis brother, \"the British Empire\'s done. It\'s U-P. The Union Jack, so to\nspeak, won\'t be worth the paper it\'s written on, Tom.\"\n\n\"I suppose you couldn\'t lend us a hand this morning,\" said Jessica,\nin his impressive pause. \"Everybody in Bun Hill seems wanting early\npotatoes at once. Tom can\'t carry half of them.\"\n\n\"We\'re living on a volcano,\" said Bert, disregarding the suggestion. \"At\nany moment war may come--such a war!\"\n\nHe shook his head portentously.\n\n\"You\'d better take this lot first, Tom,\" said Jessica. She turned\nbriskly on Bert. \"Can you spare us a morning?\" she asked.\n\n\"I dessay I can,\" said Bert. \"The shop\'s very quiet s\'morning. Though\nall this danger to the Empire worries me something frightful.\"\n\n\"Work\'ll take it off your mind,\" said Jessica.\n\nAnd presently he too was going out into a world of change and wonder,\nbowed beneath a load of potatoes and patriotic insecurity, that merged\nat last into a very definite irritation at the weight and want of style\nof the potatoes and a very clear conception of the entire detestableness\nof Jessica.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II. HOW BERT SMALLWAYS GOT INTO DIFFICULTIES\n\nIt did not occur to either Tom or Bert Smallways that this remarkable\naerial performance of Mr. Butteridge was likely to affect either of\ntheir lives in any special manner, that it would in any way single them\nout from the millions about them; and when they had witnessed it from\nthe crest of Bun Hill and seen the fly-like mechanism, its rotating\nplanes a golden haze in the sunset, sink humming to the harbour of its\nshed again, they turned back towards the sunken green-grocery beneath\nthe great iron standard of the London to Brighton mono-rail, and their\nminds reverted to the discussion that had engaged them before Mr.\nButteridge\'s triumph had come in sight out of the London haze.\n\nIt was a difficult and unsuccessful discussions. They had to carry it\non in shouts because of the moaning and roaring of the gyroscopic\nmotor-cars that traversed the High Street, and in its nature it was\ncontentious and private. The Grubb business was in difficulties, and\nGrubb in a moment of financial eloquence had given a half-share in it\nto Bert, whose relations with his employer had been for some time\nunsalaried and pallish and informal.\n\nBert was trying to impress Tom with the idea that the reconstructed\nGrubb & Smallways offered unprecedented and unparalleled opportunities\nto the judicious small investor. It was coming home to Bert, as though\nit were an entirely new fact, that Tom was singularly impervious to\nideas. In the end he put the financial issues on one side, and, making\nthe thing entirely a matter of fraternal affection, succeeded in\nborrowing a sovereign on the security of his word of honour.\n\nThe firm of Grubb & Smallways, formerly Grubb, had indeed been\nsingularly unlucky in the last year or so. For many years the business\nhad struggled along with a flavour of romantic insecurity in a small,\ndissolute-looking shop in the High Street, adorned with brilliantly\ncoloured advertisements of cycles, a display of bells, trouser-clips,\noil-cans, pump-clips, frame-cases, wallets, and other accessories, and\nthe announcement of \"Bicycles on Hire,\" \"Repairs,\" \"Free inflation,\"\n\"Petrol,\" and similar attractions. They were agents for several obscure\nmakes of bicycle,--two samples constituted the stock,--and occasionally\nthey effected a sale; they also repaired punctures and did their\nbest--though luck was not always on their side--with any other repairing\nthat was brought to them. They handled a line of cheap gramophones, and\ndid a little with musical boxes.\n\nThe staple of their business was, however, the letting of bicycles on\nhire. It was a singular trade, obeying no known commercial or economic\nprinciples--indeed, no principles. There was a stock of ladies\' and\ngentlemen\'s bicycles in a state of disrepair that passes description,\nand these, the hiring stock, were let to unexacting and reckless people,\ninexpert in the things of this world, at a nominal rate of one shilling\nfor the first hour and sixpence per hour afterwards. But really there\nwere no fixed prices, and insistent boys could get bicycles and the\nthrill of danger for an hour for so low a sum as threepence, provided\nthey could convince Grubb that that was all they had. The saddle and\nhandle-bar were then sketchily adjusted by Grubb, a deposit exacted,\nexcept in the case of familiar boys, the machine lubricated, and the\nadventurer started upon his career. Usually he or she came back, but at\ntimes, when the accident was serious, Bert or Grubb had to go out and\nfetch the machine home. Hire was always charged up to the hour of return\nto the shop and deducted from the deposit. It was rare that a bicycle\nstarted out from their hands in a state of pedantic efficiency. Romantic\npossibilities of accident lurked in the worn thread of the screw that\nadjusted the saddle, in the precarious pedals, in the loose-knit chain,\nin the handle-bars, above all in the brakes and tyres. Tappings and\nclankings and strange rhythmic creakings awoke as the intrepid hirer\npedalled out into the country. Then perhaps the bell would jam or a\nbrake fail to act on a hill; or the seat-pillar would get loose, and the\nsaddle drop three or four inches with a disconcerting bump; or the loose\nand rattling chain would jump the cogs of the chain-wheel as the machine\nran downhill, and so bring the mechanism to an abrupt and disastrous\nstop without at the same time arresting the forward momentum of the\nrider; or a tyre would bang, or sigh quietly, and give up the struggle\nfor efficiency.\n\nWhen the hirer returned, a heated pedestrian, Grubb would ignore all\nverbal complaints, and examine the machine gravely.\n\n\"This ain\'t \'ad fair usage,\" he used to begin.\n\nHe became a mild embodiment of the spirit of reason. \"You can\'t expect a\nbicycle to take you up in its arms and carry you,\" he used to say. \"You\ngot to show intelligence. After all--it\'s machinery.\"\n\nSometimes the process of liquidating the consequent claims bordered on\nviolence. It was always a very rhetorical and often a trying affair, but\nin these progressive times you have to make a noise to get a living. It\nwas often hard work, but nevertheless this hiring was a fairly steady\nsource of profit, until one day all the panes in the window and door\nwere broken and the stock on sale in the window greatly damaged and\ndisordered by two over-critical hirers with no sense of rhetorical\nirrelevance. They were big, coarse stokers from Gravesend. One was\nannoyed because his left pedal had come off, and the other because his\ntyre had become deflated, small and indeed negligible accidents by Bun\nHill standards, due entirely to the ungentle handling of the delicate\nmachines entrusted to them--and they failed to see clearly how they put\nthemselves in the wrong by this method of argument. It is a poor way of\nconvincing a man that he has let you a defective machine to throw his\nfoot-pump about his shop, and take his stock of gongs outside in order\nto return them through the window-panes. It carried no real conviction\nto the minds of either Grubb or Bert; it only irritated and vexed them.\nOne quarrel makes many, and this unpleasantness led to a violent dispute\nbetween Grubb and the landlord upon the moral aspects of and legal\nresponsibility for the consequent re-glazing. In the end Grubb and\nSmallways were put to the expense of a strategic nocturnal removal to\nanother position.\n\nIt was a position they had long considered. It was a small, shed-like\nshop with a plate-glass window and one room behind, just at the sharp\nbend in the road at the bottom of Bun Hill; and here they struggled\nalong bravely, in spite of persistent annoyance from their former\nlandlord, hoping for certain eventualities the peculiar situation of the\nshop seemed to promise. Here, too, they were doomed to disappointment.\n\nThe High Road from London to Brighton that ran through Bun Hill was like\nthe British Empire or the British Constitution--a thing that had grown\nto its present importance. Unlike any other roads in Europe the British\nhigh roads have never been subjected to any organised attempts to\ngrade or straighten them out, and to that no doubt their peculiar\npicturesqueness is to be ascribed. The old Bun Hill High Street drops at\nits end for perhaps eighty or a hundred feet of descent at an angle\nof one in five, turns at right angles to the left, runs in a curve for\nabout thirty yards to a brick bridge over the dry ditch that had once\nbeen the Otterbourne, and then bends sharply to the right again round\na dense clump of trees and goes on, a simple, straightforward, peaceful\nhigh road. There had been one or two horse-and-van and bicycle accidents\nin the place before the shop Bert and Grubb took was built, and, to be\nfrank, it was the probability of others that attracted them to it.\n\nIts possibilities had come to them first with a humorous flavour.\n\n\"Here\'s one of the places where a chap might get a living by keeping\nhens,\" said Grubb.\n\n\"You can\'t get a living by keeping hens,\" said Bert.\n\n\"You\'d keep the hen and have it spatch-cocked,\" said Grubb. \"The motor\nchaps would pay for it.\"\n\nWhen they really came to take the place they remembered this\nconversation. Hens, however, were out of the question; there was no\nplace for a run unless they had it in the shop. It would have been\nobviously out of place there. The shop was much more modern than their\nformer one, and had a plate-glass front. \"Sooner or later,\" said Bert,\n\"we shall get a motor-car through this.\"\n\n\"That\'s all right,\" said Grubb. \"Compensation. I don\'t mind when that\nmotor-car comes along. I don\'t mind even if it gives me a shock to the\nsystem.\"\n\n\"And meanwhile,\" said Bert, with great artfulness, \"I\'m going to buy\nmyself a dog.\"\n\nHe did. He bought three in succession. He surprised the people at the\nDogs\' Home in Battersea by demanding a deaf retriever, and rejecting\nevery candidate that pricked up its ears. \"I want a good, deaf,\nslow-moving dog,\" he said. \"A dog that doesn\'t put himself out for\nthings.\"\n\nThey displayed inconvenient curiosity; they declared a great scarcity of\ndeaf dogs.\n\n\"You see,\" they said, \"dogs aren\'t deaf.\"\n\n\"Mine\'s got to be,\" said Bert. \"I\'ve HAD dogs that aren\'t deaf. All I\nwant. It\'s like this, you see--I sell gramophones. Naturally I got to\nmake \'em talk and tootle a bit to show \'em orf. Well, a dog that isn\'t\ndeaf doesn\'t like it--gets excited, smells round, barks, growls. That\nupsets the customer. See? Then a dog that has his hearing fancies\nthings. Makes burglars out of passing tramps. Wants to fight every motor\nthat makes a whizz. All very well if you want livening up, but our place\nis lively enough. I don\'t want a dog of that sort. I want a quiet dog.\"\n\nIn the end he got three in succession, but none of them turned out well.\nThe first strayed off into the infinite, heeding no appeals; the second\nwas killed in the night by a fruit motor-waggon which fled before Grubb\ncould get down; the third got itself entangled in the front wheel of a\npassing cyclist, who came through the plate glass, and proved to be an\nactor out of work and an undischarged bankrupt. He demanded compensation\nfor some fancied injury, would hear nothing of the valuable dog he had\nkilled or the window he had broken, obliged Grubb by sheer physical\nobduracy to straighten his buckled front wheel, and pestered the\nstruggling firm with a series of inhumanly worded solicitor\'s letters.\nGrubb answered them--stingingly, and put himself, Bert thought, in the\nwrong.\n\nAffairs got more and more exasperating and strained under these\npressures. The window was boarded up, and an unpleasant altercation\nabout their delay in repairing it with the new landlord, a Bun Hill\nbutcher--and a loud, bellowing, unreasonable person at that--served to\nremind them of their unsettled troubles with the old. Things were at\nthis pitch when Bert bethought himself of creating a sort of debenture\ncapital in the business for the benefit of Tom. But, as I have said,\nTom had no enterprise in his composition. His idea of investment was the\nstocking; he bribed his brother not to keep the offer open.\n\nAnd then ill-luck made its last lunge at their crumbling business and\nbrought it to the ground.\n\n2\n\nIt is a poor heart that never rejoices, and Whitsuntide had an air of\ncoming as an agreeable break in the business complications of Grubb &\nSmallways. Encouraged by the practical outcome of Bert\'s negotiations\nwith his brother, and by the fact that half the hiring-stock was\nout from Saturday to Monday, they decided to ignore the residuum of\nhiring-trade on Sunday and devote that day to much-needed relaxation and\nrefreshment--to have, in fact, an unstinted good time, a beano on Whit\nSunday and return invigorated to grapple with their difficulties and\nthe Bank Holiday repairs on the Monday. No good thing was ever done\nby exhausted and dispirited men. It happened that they had made the\nacquaintance of two young ladies in employment in Clapham, Miss Flossie\nBright and Miss Edna Bunthorne, and it was resolved therefore to make\na cheerful little cyclist party of four into the heart of Kent, and to\npicnic and spend an indolent afternoon and evening among the trees and\nbracken between Ashford and Maidstone.\n\nMiss Bright could ride a bicycle, and a machine was found for her, not\namong the hiring stock, but specially, in the sample held for sale. Miss\nBunthorne, whom Bert particularly affected, could not ride, and so with\nsome difficulty he hired a basket-work trailer from the big business of\nWray\'s in the Clapham Road.\n\nTo see our young men, brightly dressed and cigarettes alight, wheeling\noff to the rendezvous, Grubb guiding the lady\'s machine beside him with\none skilful hand and Bert teuf-teuffing steadily, was to realise how\npluck may triumph even over insolvency. Their landlord, the butcher,\nsaid, \"Gurr,\" as they passed, and shouted, \"Go it!\" in a loud, savage\ntone to their receding backs.\n\nMuch they cared!\n\nThe weather was fine, and though they were on their way southward before\nnine o\'clock, there was already a great multitude of holiday people\nabroad upon the roads. There were quantities of young men and women on\nbicycles and motor-bicycles, and a majority of gyroscopic motor-cars\nrunning bicycle-fashion on two wheels, mingled with old-fashioned\nfour-wheeled traffic. Bank Holiday times always bring out old\nstored-away vehicles and odd people; one saw tricars and electric\nbroughams and dilapidated old racing motors with huge pneumatic tyres.\nOnce our holiday-makers saw a horse and cart, and once a youth riding a\nblack horse amidst the badinage of the passersby. And there were several\nnavigable gas air-ships, not to mention balloons, in the air. It was\nall immensely interesting and refreshing after the dark anxieties of\nthe shop. Edna wore a brown straw hat with poppies, that suited her\nadmirably, and sat in the trailer like a queen, and the eight-year-old\nmotor-bicycle ran like a thing of yesterday.\n\nLittle it seemed to matter to Mr. Bert Smallways that a newspaper\nplacard proclaimed:-- --------------------------------------- GERMANY\nDENOUNCES THE MONROE DOCTRINE.\n\n AMBIGUOUS ATTITUDE OF JAPAN.\nWHAT WILL BRITAIN DO? IS IT WAR?---------------------------------------\n\nThis sort of thing was alvays going on, and on holidays one disregarded\nit as a matter of course. Week-davs, in the slack time after the midday\nmeal, then perhaps one might worry about the Empire and international\npolitics; but not on a sunny Sunday, with a pretty girl trailing behind\none, and envious cyclists trying to race you. Nor did our young people\nattach any great importance to the flitting suggestions of military\nactivity they glimpsed ever and again. Near Maidstone they came on\na string of eleven motor-guns of peculiar construction halted by the\nroadside, with a number of businesslike engineers grouped about them\nwatching through field-glasses some sort of entrenchment that was going\non near the crest of the downs. It signified nothing to Bert.\n\n\"What\'s up?\" said Edna.\n\n\"Oh!--manoeuvres,\" said Bert.\n\n\"Oh! I thought they did them at Easter,\" said Edna, and troubled no\nmore.\n\nThe last great British war, the Boer war, was over and forgotten, and\nthe public had lost the fashion of expert military criticism.\n\nOur four young people picnicked cheerfully, and were happy in the manner\nof a happiness that was an ancient mode in Nineveh. Eyes were bright,\nGrubb was funny and almost witty, and Bert achieved epigrams; the\nhedges were full of honeysuckle and dog-roses; in the woods the distant\ntoot-toot-toot of the traffic on the dust-hazy high road might have been\nno more than the horns of elf-land. They laughed and gossiped and picked\nflowers and made love and talked, and the girls smoked cigarettes. Also\nthey scuffled playfully. Among other things they talked aeronautics,\nand how thev would come for a picnic together in Bert\'s flying-machine\nbefore ten years were out. The world seemed full of amusing\npossibilities that afternoon. They wondered what their\ngreat-grandparents would have thought of aeronautics. In the evening,\nabout seven, the party turned homeward, expecting no disaster, and it\nwas only on the crest of the downs between Wrotham and Kingsdown that\ndisaster came.\n\nThey had come up the hill in the twilight; Bert was anxious to get as\nfar as possible before he lit--or attempted to light, for the issue\nwas a doubtful one--his lamps, and they had scorched past a number of\ncyclists, and by a four-wheeled motor-car of the old style lamed by a\ndeflated tyre. Some dust had penetrated Bert\'s horn, and the result was\na curious, amusing, wheezing sound had got into his \"honk, honk.\" For\nthe sake of merriment and glory he was making this sound as much as\npossible, and Edna was in fits of laughter in the trailer. They made a\nsort of rushing cheerfulness along the road that affected their fellow\ntravellers variously, according to their temperaments. She did notice a\ngood lot of bluish, evil-smelling smoke coming from about the\nbearings between his feet, but she thought this was one of the natural\nconcomitants of motor-traction, and troubled no more about it, until\nabruptly it burst into a little yellow-tipped flame.\n\n\"Bert!\" she screamed.\n\nBut Bert had put on the brakes with such suddenness that she found\nherself involved with his leg as he dismounted. She got to the side of\nthe road and hastily readjusted her hat, which had suffered.\n\n\"Gaw!\" said Bert.\n\nHe stood for some fatal seconds watching the petrol drip and catch, and\nthe flame, which was now beginning to smell of enamel as well as oil,\nspread and grew. His chief idea was the sorrowful one that he had not\nsold the machine second-hand a year ago, and that he ought to have done\nso--a good idea in its way, but not immediately helpful. He turned upon\nEdna sharply. \"Get a lot of wet sand,\" he said. Then he wheeled the\nmachine a little towards the side of the roadway, and laid it down and\nlooked about for a supply of wet sand. The flames received this as a\nhelpful attention, and made the most of it. They seemed to brighten and\nthe twilight to deepen about them. The road was a flinty road in the\nchalk country, and ill-provided with sand.\n\nEdna accosted a short, fat cyclist. \"We want wet sand,\" she said, and\nadded, \"our motor\'s on fire.\" The short, fat cyclist stared blankly for\na moment, then with a helpful cry began to scrabble in the road-grit.\nWhereupon Bert and Edna also scrabbled in the road-grit. Other cyclists\narrived, dismounted and stood about, and their flame-lit faces expressed\nsatisfaction, interest, curiosity. \"Wet sand,\" said the short, fat man,\nscrabbling terribly--\"wet sand.\" One joined him. They threw hard-earned\nhandfuls of road-grit upon the flames, which accepted them with\nenthusiasm.\n\nGrubb arrived, riding hard. He was shouting something. He sprang off\nand threw his bicycle into the hedge. \"Don\'t throw water on it!\" he\nsaid--\"don\'t throw water on it!\" He displayed commanding presence of\nmind. He became captain of the occasion. Others were glad to repeat the\nthings he said and imitate his actions.\n\n\"Don\'t throw water on it!\" they cried. Also there was no water.\n\n\"Beat it out, you fools!\" he said.\n\nHe seized a rug from the trailer (it was an Austrian blanket, and\nBert\'s winter coverlet) and began to beat at the burning petrol. For a\nwonderful minute he seemed to succeed. But he scattered burning pools\nof petrol on the road, and others, fired by his enthusiasm, imitated his\naction. Bert caught up a trailer-cushion and began to beat; there was\nanother cushion and a table-cloth, and these also were seized. A young\nhero pulled off his jacket and joined the beating. For a moment there\nwas less talking than hard breathing, and a tremendous flapping.\nFlossie, arriving on the outskirts of the crowd, cried, \"Oh, my God!\"\nand burst loudly into tears. \"Help!\" she said, and \"Fire!\"\n\nThe lame motor-car arrived, and stopped in consternation. A tall,\ngoggled, grey-haired man who was driving inquired with an Oxford\nintonation and a clear, careful enunciation, \"Can WE help at all?\"\n\nIt became manifest that the rug, the table-cloth, the cushions, the\njacket, were getting smeared with petrol and burning. The soul seemed\nto go out of the cushion Bert was swaying, and the air was full of\nfeathers, like a snowstorm in the still twilight.\n\nBert had got very dusty and sweaty and strenuous. It seemed to him his\nweapon had been wrested from him at the moment of victory. The fire lay\nlike a dying thing, close to the ground and wicked; it gave a leap of\nanguish at every whack of the beaters. But now Grubb had gone off to\nstamp out the burning blanket; the others were lacking just at the\nmoment of victory. One had dropped the cushion and was running to the\nmotor-car. \"\'ERE!\" cried Bert; \"keep on!\"\n\nHe flung the deflated burning rags of cushion aside, whipped off his\njacket and sprang at the flames with a shout. He stamped into the ruin\nuntil flames ran up his boots. Edna saw him, a red-lit hero, and thought\nit was good to be a man.\n\nA bystander was hit by a hot halfpenny flying out of the air. Then Bert\nthought of the papers in his pockets, and staggered back, trying to\nextinguish his burning jacket--checked, repulsed, dismayed.\n\nEdna was struck by the benevolent appearance of an elderly spectator in\na silk hat and Sabbatical garments. \"Oh!\" she cried to him. \"Help this\nyoung man! How can you stand and see it?\"\n\nA cry of \"The tarpaulin!\" arose.\n\nAn earnest-looking man in a very light grey cycling-suit had suddenly\nappeared at the side of the lame motor-car and addressed the owner.\n\"Have you a tarpaulin?\" he said.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the gentlemanly man. \"Yes. We\'ve got a tarpaulin.\"\n\n\"That\'s it,\" said the earnest-looking man, suddenly shouting. \"Let\'s\nhave it, quick!\"\n\nThe gentlemanly man, with feeble and deprecatory gestures, and in the\nmanner of a hypnotised person, produced an excellent large tarpaulin.\n\n\"Here!\" cried the earnest-looking man to Grubb. \"Ketch holt!\"\n\nThen everybody realised that a new method was to be tried. A number of\nwilling hands seized upon the Oxford gentleman\'s tarpaulin. The others\nstood away with approving noises. The tarpaulin was held over the\nburning bicycle like a canopy, and then smothered down upon it.\n\n\"We ought to have done this before,\" panted Grubb.\n\nThere was a moment of triumph. The flames vanished. Every one who could\ncontrive to do so touched the edge of the tarpaulin. Bert held down\na corner with two hands and a foot. The tarpaulin, bulged up in the\ncentre, seemed to be suppressing triumphant exultation. Then its\nself-approval became too much for it; it burst into a bright red smile\nin the centre. It was exactly like the opening of a mouth. It laughed\nwith a gust of flames. They were reflected redly in the observant\ngoggles of the gentleman who owned the tarpaulin. Everybody recoiled.\n\n\"Save the trailer!\" cried some one, and that was the last round in\nthe battle. But the trailer could not be detached; its wicker-work had\ncaught, and it was the last thing to burn. A sort of hush fell upon\nthe gathering. The petrol burnt low, the wicker-work trailer banged\nand crackled. The crowd divided itself into an outer circle of critics,\nadvisers, and secondary characters, who had played undistinguished parts\nor no parts at all in the affair, and a central group of heated\nand distressed principals. A young man with an inquiring mind and a\nconsiderable knowledge of motor-bicycles fixed on to Grubb and wanted\nto argue that the thing could not have happened. Grubb wass short and\ninattentive with him, and the young man withdrew to the back of the\ncrowd, and there told the benevolent old gentleman in the silk hat\nthat people who went out with machines they didn\'t understand had only\nthemselves to blame if things went wrong.\n\nThe old gentleman let him talk for some time, and then remarked, in a\ntone of rapturous enjoyment: \"Stone deaf,\" and added, \"Nasty things.\"\n\nA rosy-faced man in a straw hat claimed attention. \"I DID save the front\nwheel,\" he said; \"you\'d have had that tyre catch, too, if I hadn\'t kept\nturning it round.\" It became manifest that this was so. The front wheel\nhad retained its tyre, was intact, was still rotating slowly among the\nblackened and twisted ruins of the rest of the machine. It had something\nof that air of conscious virtue, of unimpeachable respectability, that\ndistinguishes a rent collector in a low neighbourhood. \"That wheel\'s\nworth a pound,\" said the rosy-faced man, making a song of it. \"I kep\'\nturning it round.\"\n\nNewcomers kept arriving from the south with the question, \"What\'s up?\"\nuntil it got on Grubb\'s nerves. Londonward the crowd was constantly\nlosing people; they would mount their various wheels with the satisfied\nmanner of spectators who have had the best. Their voices would recede\ninto the twilight; one would hear a laugh at the memory of this\nparticularly salient incident or that.\n\n\"I\'m afraid,\" said the gentleman of the motor-car, \"my tarpaulin\'s a bit\ndone for.\"\n\nGrubb admitted that the owner was the best judge of that.\n\n\"Nothin, else I can do for you?\" said the gentleman of the motor-car, it\nmay be with a suspicion of irony.\n\nBert was roused to action. \"Look here,\" he said. \"There\'s my young lady.\nIf she ain\'t \'ome by ten they lock her out. See? Well, all my money was\nin my jacket pocket, and it\'s all mixed up with the burnt stuff, and\nthat\'s too \'ot to touch. Is Clapham out of your way?\"\n\n\"All in the day\'s work,\" said the gentleman with the motor-car, and\nturned to Edna. \"Very pleased indeed,\" he said, \"if you\'ll come with us.\nWe\'re late for dinner as it is, so it won\'t make much difference for us\nto go home by way of Clapham. We\'ve got to get to Surbiton, anyhow. I\'m\nafraid you\'ll find us a little slow.\"\n\n\"But what\'s Bert going to do?\" said Edna.\n\n\"I don\'t know that we can accommodate Bert,\" said the motor-car\ngentleman, \"though we\'re tremendously anxious to oblige.\"\n\n\"You couldn\'t take the whole lot?\" said Bert, waving his hand at the\ndeboshed and blackened ruins on the ground.\n\n\"I\'m awfully afraid I can\'t,\" said the Oxford man. \"Awfully sorry, you\nknow.\"\n\n\"Then I\'ll have to stick \'ere for a bit,\" said Bert. \"I got to see the\nthing through. You go on, Edna.\"\n\n\"Don\'t like leavin\' you, Bert.\"\n\n\"You can\'t \'elp it, Edna.\"...\n\nThe last Edna saw of Bert was his figure, in charred and blackened\nshirtsleeves, standing in the dusk. He was musing deeply by the mixed\nironwork and ashes of his vanished motor-bicycle, a melancholy figure.\nHis retinue of spectators had shrunk now to half a dozen figures.\nFlossie and Grubb were preparing to follow her desertion.\n\n\"Cheer up, old Bert!\" cried Edna, with artificial cheerfulness. \"So\nlong.\"\n\n\"So long, Edna,\" said Bert.\n\n\"See you to-morrer.\"\n\n\"See you to-morrer,\" said Bert, though he was destined, as a matter of\nfact, to see much of the habitable globe before he saw her again.\n\nBert began to light matches from a borrowed boxful, and search for a\nhalf-crown that still eluded him among the charred remains.\n\nHis face was grave and melancholy.\n\n\"I WISH that \'adn\'t \'appened,\" said Flossie, riding on with Grubb....\n\nAnd at last Bert was left almost alone, a sad, blackened Promethean\nfigure, cursed by the gift of fire. He had entertained vague ideas of\nhiring a cart, of achieving miraculous repairs, of still snatching some\nresidual value from his one chief possession. Now, in the darkening\nnight, he perceived the vanity of such intentions. Truth came to him\nbleakly, and laid her chill conviction upon him. He took hold of the\nhandle-bar, stood the thing up, tried to push it forward. The tyreless\nhind-wheel was jammed hopelessly, even as he feared. For a minute or so\nhe stood upholding his machine, a motionless despair. Then with a great\neffort he thrust the ruins from him into the ditch, kicked at it once,\nregarded it for a moment, and turned his face resolutely Londonward.\n\nHe did not once look back.\n\n\"That\'s the end of THAT game!\" said Bert. \"No more teuf-teuf-teuf for\nBert Smallways for a year or two. Good-bye \'olidays!... Oh! I ought to\n\'ave sold the blasted thing when I had a chance three years ago.\"\n\n3\n\nThe next morning found the firm of Grubb & Smallways in a state\nof profound despondency. It seemed a small matter to them that the\nnewspaper and cigarette shop opposite displayed such placards as this:--\n\n--------------------------------------- REPORTED AMERICAN ULTIMATUM.\n\n BRITAIN MUST FIGHT.\n\n OUR INFATUATED WAR OFFICE STILL\nREFUSES TO LISTEN TO MR. BUTTERIDGE.\n\nGREAT MONO-RAIL DISASTER AT\nTIMBUCTOO.---------------------------------------\n\nor this:-- --------------------------------------- WAR A QUESTION OF\nHOURS.\n\n NEW YORK CALM.\n\n EXCITEMENT IN BERLIN.---------------------------------------\n\nor again:-- --------------------------------------- WASHINGTON STILL\nSILENT.\n\n WHAT WILL PARIS DO?\n\n THE PANIC ON THE BOURSE.\n\nTHE KING\'S GARDEN PARTY TO THE MASKED TWAREGS.\n\nMR. BUTTERIDGE TAKES AN OFFER.\n\nLATEST BETTING FROM TEHERAN.---------------------------------------\n\nor this:-- --------------------------------------- WILL AMERICA FIGHT?\n\n ANTI-GERMAN RIOT IN BAGDAD.\n\n THE MUNICIPAL SCANDALS AT DAMASCUS.\n\nMR. BUTTERIDGE\'S INVENTION FOR\nAMERICA.---------------------------------------\n\nBert stared at these over the card of pump-clips in the pane in the\ndoor with unseeing eyes. He wore a blackened flannel shirt, and the\njacketless ruins of the holiday suit of yesterday. The boarded-up shop\nwas dark and depressing beyond words, the few scandalous hiring machines\nhad never looked so hopelessly disreputable. He thought of their fellows\nwho were \"out,\" and of the approaching disputations of the afternoon. He\nthought of their new landlord, and of their old landlord, and of bills\nand claims. Life presented itself for the first time as a hopeless fight\nagainst fate....\n\n\"Grubb, o\' man,\" he said, distilling the quintessence, \"I\'m fair sick of\nthis shop.\"\n\n\"So\'m I,\" said Grubb.\n\n\"I\'m out of conceit with it. I don\'t seem to care ever to speak to a\ncustomer again.\"\n\n\"There\'s that trailer,\" said Grubb, after a pause.\n\n\"Blow the trailer!\" said Bert. \"Anyhow, I didn\'t leave a deposit on it.\nI didn\'t do that. Still--\"\n\nHe turned round on his friend. \"Look \'ere,\" he said, \"we aren\'t gettin\'\non here. We been losing money hand over fist. We got things tied up in\nfifty knots.\"\n\n\"What can we do?\" said Grubb.\n\n\"Clear out. Sell what we can for what it will fetch, and quit. See?\nIt\'s no good \'anging on to a losing concern. No sort of good. Jest\nfoolishness.\"\n\n\"That\'s all right,\" said Grubb--\"that\'s all right; but it ain\'t your\ncapital been sunk in it.\"\n\n\"No need for us to sink after our capital,\" said Bert, ignoring the\npoint.\n\n\"I\'m not going to be held responsible for that trailer, anyhow. That\nain\'t my affair.\"\n\n\"Nobody arst you to make it your affair. If you like to stick on here,\nwell and good. I\'m quitting. I\'ll see Bank Holiday through, and then I\'m\nO-R-P-H. See?\"\n\n\"Leavin\' me?\"\n\n\"Leavin\' you. If you must be left.\"\n\nGrubb looked round the shop. It certainly had become distasteful. Once\nupon a time it had been bright with hope and new beginnings and stock\nand the prospect of credit. Now--now it was failure and dust. Very\nlikely the landlord would be round presently to go on with the row about\nthe window.... \"Where d\'you think of going, Bert?\" Grubb asked.\n\nBert turned round and regarded him. \"I thought it out as I was walking\n\'ome, and in bed. I couldn\'t sleep a wink.\"\n\n\"What did you think out?\"\n\n\"Plans.\"\n\n\"What plans?\"\n\n\"Oh! You\'re for stickin, here.\"\n\n\"Not if anything better was to offer.\"\n\n\"It\'s only an ideer,\" said Bert.\n\n\"You made the girls laugh yestiday, that song you sang.\"\n\n\"Seems a long time ago now,\" said Grubb.\n\n\"And old Edna nearly cried--over that bit of mine.\"\n\n\"She got a fly in her eye,\" said Grubb; \"I saw it. But what\'s this got\nto do with your plan?\"\n\n\"No end,\" said Bert.\n\n\"\'Ow?\"\n\n\"Don\'t you see?\"\n\n\"Not singing in the streets?\"\n\n\"Streets! No fear! But \'ow about the Tour of the Waterin\' Places of\nEngland, Grubb? Singing! Young men of family doing it for a lark? You\nain\'t got a bad voice, you know, and mine\'s all right. I never see a\nchap singing on the beach yet that I couldn\'t \'ave sung into a cocked\nhat. And we both know how to put on the toff a bit. Eh? Well, that\'s my\nideer. Me and you, Grubb, with a refined song and a breakdown. Like we\nwas doing for foolery yestiday. That was what put it into my \'ead. Easy\nmake up a programme--easy. Six choice items, and one or two for encores\nand patter. I\'m all right for the patter anyhow.\"\n\nGrubb remained regarding his darkened and disheartening shop; he thought\nof his former landlord and his present landlord, and of the general\ndisgustingness of business in an age which re-echoes to The Bitter Cry\nof the Middle Class; and then it seemed to him that afar off he heard\nthe twankle, twankle of a banjo, and the voice of a stranded siren\nsinging. He had a sense of hot sunshine upon sand, of the children of at\nleast transiently opulent holiday makers in a circle round about him, of\nthe whisper, \"They are really gentlemen,\" and then dollop, dollop came\nthe coppers in the hat. Sometimes even silver. It was all income; no\noutgoings, no bills. \"I\'m on, Bert,\" he said.\n\n\"Right O!\" said Bert, and, \"Now we shan\'t be long.\"\n\n\"We needn\'t start without capital neither,\" said Grubb. \"If we take the\nbest of these machines up to the Bicycle Mart in Finsbury we\'d raise six\nor seven pounds on \'em. We could easy do that to-morrow before anybody\nmuch was about....\"\n\n\"Nice to think of old Suet-and-Bones coming round to make his usual row\nwith us, and finding a card up \'Closed for Repairs.\'\"\n\n\"We\'ll do that,\" said Grubb with zest--\"we\'ll do that. And we\'ll put\nup another notice, and jest arst all inquirers to go round to \'im and\ninquire. See? Then they\'ll know all about us.\"\n\nBefore the day was out the whole enterprise was planned. They decided at\nfirst that they would call themselves the Naval Mr. O\'s, a plagiarism,\nand not perhaps a very good one, from the title of the well-known troupe\nof \"Scarlet Mr. E\'s,\" and Bert rather clung to the idea of a uniform of\nbright blue serge, with a lot of gold lace and cord and ornamentation,\nrather like a naval officer\'s, but more so. But that had to be abandoned\nas impracticable, it would have taken too much time and money to\nprepare. They perceived they must wear some cheaper and more readily\nprepared costume, and Grubb fell back on white dominoes. They\nentertained the notion for a time of selecting the two worst machines\nfrom the hiring-stock, painting them over with crimson enamel paint,\nreplacing the bells by the loudest sort of motor-horn, and doing a ride\nabout to begin and end the entertainment. They doubted the advisability\nof this step.\n\n\"There\'s people in the world,\" said Bert, \"who wouldn\'t recognise us,\nwho\'d know them bicycles again like a shot, and we don\'t want to go on\nwith no old stories. We want a fresh start.\"\n\n\"I do,\" said Grubb, \"badly.\"\n\n\"We want to forget things--and cut all these rotten old worries. They\nain\'t doin\' us good.\"\n\nNevertheless, they decided to take the risk of these bicycles, and they\ndecided their costumes should be brown stockings and sandals, and cheap\nunbleached sheets with a hole cut in the middle, and wigs and beards of\ntow. The rest their normal selves! \"The Desert Dervishes,\" they would\ncall themselves, and their chief songs would be those popular ditties,\n\"In my Trailer,\" and \"What Price Hair-pins Now?\"\n\nThey decided to begin with small seaside places, and gradually, as they\ngained confidence, attack larger centres. To begin with they selected\nLittlestone in Kent, chiefly because of its unassuming name.\n\nSo they planned, and it seemed a small and unimportant thing to them\nthat as they clattered the governments of half the world and more were\ndrifting into war. About midday they became aware of the first of\nthe evening-paper placards shouting to them across the street:--\n-----------------------------------------------\n\nTHE WAR-CLOUD DARKENS-----------------------------------------------\n\nNothing else but that.\n\n\"Always rottin\' about war now,\" said Bert.\n\n\"They\'ll get it in the neck in real earnest one of these days, if they\nain\'t precious careful.\"\n\n4\n\nSo you will understand the sudden apparition that surprised rather than\ndelighted the quiet informality of Dymchurch sands. Dymchurch was one of\nthe last places on the coast of England to be reached by the mono-rail,\nand so its spacious sands were still, at the time of this story, the\nsecret and delight of quite a limited number of people. They went there\nto flee vulgarity and extravagances, and to bathe and sit and talk and\nplay with their children in peace, and the Desert Dervishes did not\nplease them at all.\n\nThe two white figures on scarlet wheels came upon them out of the\ninfinite along the sands from Littlestone, grew nearer and larger and\nmore audible, honk-honking and emitting weird cries, and generally\nthreatening liveliness of the most aggressive type. \"Good heavens!\" said\nDymchurch, \"what\'s this?\"\n\nThen our young men, according to a preconcerted plan, wheeled round from\nfile to line, dismounted and stood it attention. \"Ladies and gentlemen,\"\nthey said, \"we beg to present ourselves--the Desert Dervishes.\" They\nbowed profoundly.\n\nThe few scattered groups upon the beach regarded them with horror for\nthe most part, but some of the children and young people were interested\nand drew nearer. \"There ain\'t a bob on the beach,\" said Grubb in an\nundertone, and the Desert Dervishes plied their bicycles with comic\n\"business,\" that got a laugh from one very unsophisticated little boy.\nThen they took a deep breath and struck into the cheerful strain of\n\"What Price Hair-pins Now?\" Grubb sang the song, Bert did his best to\nmake the chorus a rousing one, and it the end of each verse they danced\ncertain steps, skirts in hand, that they had carefully rehearsed.\n\n \"Ting-a-ling-a-ting-a-ling-a-ting-a-ling-a-tang...\n What Price Hair-pins Now?\"\n\nSo they chanted and danced their steps in the sunshine on Dymchurch\nbeach, and the children drew near these foolish young men, marvelling\nthat they should behave in this way, and the older people looked cold\nand unfriendly.\n\nAll round the coasts of Europe that morning banjos were ringing,\nvoices were bawling and singing, children were playing in the sun,\npleasure-boats went to and fro; the common abundant life of the time,\nunsuspicious of all dangers that gathered darkly against it, flowed\non its cheerful aimless way. In the cities men fussed about their\nbusinesses and engagements. The newspaper placards that had cried\n\"wolf!\" so often, cried \"wolf!\" now in vain.\n\n5\n\nNow as Bert and Grubb bawled their chorus for the third time, they\nbecame aware of a very big, golden-brown balloon low in the sky to the\nnorth-west, and coming rapidly towards them. \"Jest as we\'re gettin\' hold\nof \'em,\" muttered Grubb, \"up comes a counter-attraction. Go it, Bert!\"\n\n \"Ting-a-ling-a-ting-a-ling-a-ting-a-ling-a-tang\n What Price Hair-pins Now?\"\n\nThe balloon rose and fell, went out of sight--\"landed, thank goodness,\"\nsaid Grubb--re-appeared with a leap. \"\'ENG!\" said Grubb. \"Step it, Bert,\nor they\'ll see it!\"\n\nThey finished their dance, and then stood frankly staring.\n\n\"There\'s something wrong with that balloon,\" said Bert.\n\nEverybody now was looking at the balloon, drawing rapidly nearer before\na brisk north-westerly breeze. The song and dance were a \"dead frost.\"\nNobody thought any more about it. Even Bert and Grubb forgot it, and\nignored the next item on the programme altogether. The balloon was\nbumping as though its occupants were trying to land; it would approach,\nsinking slowly, touch the ground, and instantly jump fifty feet or so in\nthe air and immediately begin to fall again. Its car touched a clump of\ntrees, and the black figure that had been struggling in the ropes fell\nback, or jumped back, into the car. In another moment it was quite\nclose. It seemed a huge affair, as big as a house, and it floated down\nswiftly towards the sands; a long rope trailed behind it, and enormous\nshouts came from the man in the car. He seemed to be taking off his\nclothes, then his head came over the side of the car. \"Catch hold of the\nrope!\" they heard, quite plain.\n\n\"Salvage, Bert!\" cried Grubb, and started to head off the rope.\n\nBert followed him, and collided, without upsetting, with a fisherman\nbent upon a similar errand. A woman carrying a baby in her arms, two\nsmall boys with toy spades, and a stout gentleman in flannels all got to\nthe trailing rope at about the same time, and began to dance over it\nin their attempts to secure it. Bert came up to this wriggling, elusive\nserpent and got his foot on it, went down on all fours and achieved a\ngrip. In half a dozen seconds the whole diffused population of the beach\nhad, as it were, crystallised on the rope, and was pulling against the\nballoon under the vehement and stimulating directions of the man in the\ncar. \"Pull, I tell you!\" said the man in the car--\"pull!\"\n\nFor a second or so the balloon obeyed its momentum and the wind and\ntugged its human anchor seaward. It dropped, touched the water, and made\na flat, silvery splash, and recoiled as one\'s finger recoils when one\ntouches anything hot. \"Pull her in,\" said the man in the car. \"SHE\'S\nFAINTED!\"\n\nHe occupied himself with some unseen object while the people on the\nrope pulled him in. Bert was nearest the balloon, and much excited and\ninterested. He kept stumbling over the tail of the Dervish costume in\nhis zeal. He had never imagined before what a big, light, wallowing\nthing a balloon was. The car was of brown coarse wicker-work,\nand comparatively small. The rope he tugged at was fastened to a\nstout-looking ring, four or five feet above the car. At each tug he drew\nin a yard or so of rope, and the waggling wicker-work was drawn so much\nnearer. Out of the car came wrathful bellowings: \"Fainted, she has!\" and\nthen: \"It\'s her heart--broken with all she\'s had to go through.\"\n\nThe balloon ceased to struggle, and sank downward. Bert dropped the\nrope, and ran forward to catch it in a new place. In another moment he\nhad his hand on the car. \"Lay hold of it,\" said the man in the car, and\nhis face appeared close to Bert\'s--a strangely familiar face, fierce\neyebrows, a flattish nose, a huge black moustache. He had discarded coat\nand waistcoat--perhaps with some idea of presently having to swim for\nhis life--and his black hair was extraordinarily disordered. \"Will\nall you people get hold round the car?\" he said. \"There\'s a lady here\nfainted--or got failure of the heart. Heaven alone knows which! My name\nis Butteridge. Butteridge, my name is--in a balloon. Now please, all\non to the edge. This is the last time I trust myself to one of these\npaleolithic contrivances. The ripping-cord failed, and the valve\nwouldn\'t act. If ever I meet the scoundrel who ought to have seen--\"\n\nHe stuck his head out between the ropes abruptly, and said, in a note\nof earnest expostulation: \"Get some brandy!--some neat brandy!\" Some one\nwent up the beach for it.\n\nIn the car, sprawling upon a sort of bed-bench, in an attitude of\nelaborate self-abandonment, was a large, blond lady, wearing a fur\ncoat and a big floriferous hat. Her head lolled back against the padded\ncorner of the car, and her eyes were shut and her mouth open. \"Me dear!\"\nsaid Mr. Butteridge, in a common, loud voice, \"we\'re safe!\"\n\nShe gave no sign.\n\n\"Me dear!\" said Mr. Butteridge, in a greatly intensified loud voice,\n\"we\'re safe!\"\n\nShe was still quite impassive.\n\nThen Mr. Butteridge showed the fiery core of his soul. \"If she is\ndead,\" he said, slowly lifting a fist towards the balloon above him,\nand speaking in an immense tremulous bellow--\"if she is dead, I will\nr-r-rend the heavens like a garment! I must get her out,\" he cried, his\nnostrils dilated with emotion--\"I must get her out. I cannot have her\ndie in a wicker-work basket nine feet square--she who was made for\nkings\' palaces! Keep holt of this car! Is there a strong man among ye to\ntake her if I hand her out?\"\n\nHe swept the lady together by a powerful movement of his arms, and\nlifted her. \"Keep the car from jumping,\" he said to those who clustered\nabout him. \"Keep your weight on it. She is no light woman, and when she\nis out of it--it will be relieved.\"\n\nBert leapt lightly into a sitting position on the edge of the car. The\nothers took a firmer grip upon the ropes and ring.\n\n\"Are you ready?\" said Mr. Butteridge.\n\nHe stood upon the bed-bench and lifted the lady carefully. Then he sat\ndown on the wicker edge opposite to Bert, and put one leg over to dangle\noutside. A rope or so seemed to incommode him. \"Will some one assist\nme?\" he said. \"If they would take this lady?\"\n\nIt was just at this moment, with Mr. Butteridge and the lady balanced\nfinely on the basket brim, that she came-to. She came-to suddenly and\nviolently with a loud, heart-rending cry of \"Alfred! Save me!\" And she\nwaved her arms searchingly, and then clasped Mr. Butteridge about.\n\nIt seemed to Bert that the car swayed for a moment and then buck-jumped\nand kicked him. Also he saw the boots of the lady and the right leg of\nthe gentleman describing arcs through the air, preparatory to vanishing\nover the side of the car. His impressions were complex, but they also\ncomprehended the fact that he had lost his balance, and was going to\nstand on his head inside this creaking basket. He spread out clutching\narms. He did stand on his head, more or less, his tow-beard came off\nand got in his mouth, and his cheek slid along against padding. His nose\nburied itself in a bag of sand. The car gave a violent lurch, and became\nstill.\n\n\"Confound it!\" he said.\n\nHe had an impression he must be stunned because of a surging in his\nears, and because all the voices of the people about him had become\nsmall and remote. They were shouting like elves inside a hill.\n\nHe found it a little difficult to get on his feet. His limbs were mixed\nup with the garments Mr. Butteridge had discarded when that gentleman\nhad thought he must needs plunge into the sea. Bert bawled out half\nangry, half rueful, \"You might have said you were going to tip\nthe basket.\" Then he stood up and clutched the ropes of the car\nconvulsively.\n\nBelow him, far below him, shining blue, were the waters of the English\nChannel. Far off, a little thing in the sunshine, and rushing down as if\nsome one was bending it hollow, was the beach and the irregular cluster\nof houses that constitutes Dymchurch. He could see the little crowd of\npeople he had so abruptly left. Grubb, in the white wrapper of a Desert\nDervish, was running along the edge of the sea. Mr. Butteridge was\nknee-deep in the water, bawling immensely. The lady was sitting up with\nher floriferous hat in her lap, shockingly neglected. The beach, east\nand west, was dotted with little people--they seemed all heads and\nfeet--looking up. And the balloon, released from the twenty-five stone\nor so of Mr. Butteridge and his lady, was rushing up into the sky at the\npace of a racing motor-car. \"My crikey!\" said Bert; \"here\'s a go!\"\n\nHe looked down with a pinched face at the receding beach, and reflected\nthat he wasn\'t giddy; then he made a superficial survey of the cords and\nropes about him with a vague idea of \"doing something.\" \"I\'m not going\nto mess about with the thing,\" he said at last, and sat down upon the\nmattress. \"I\'m not going to touch it.... I wonder what one ought to do?\"\n\nSoon he got up again and stared for a long time it the sinking world\nbelow, at white cliffs to the east and flattening marsh to the left, at\na minute wide prospect of weald and downland, at dim towns and harbours\nand rivers and ribbon-like roads, at ships and ships, decks and\nforeshortened funnels upon the ever-widening sea, and at the great\nmono-rail bridge that straddled the Channel from Folkestone to Boulogne,\nuntil at last, first little wisps and then a veil of filmy cloud hid the\nprospect from his eyes. He wasn\'t at all giddy nor very much frightened,\nonly in a state of enormous consternation.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III. THE BALLOON\n\nI\n\nBert Smallways was a vulgar little creature, the sort of pert, limited\nsoul that the old civilisation of the early twentieth century produced\nby the million in every country of the world. He had lived all his life\nin narrow streets, and between mean houses he could not look over, and\nin a narrow circle of ideas from which there was no escape. He thought\nthe whole duty of man was to be smarter than his fellows, get his hands,\nas he put it, \"on the dibs,\" and have a good time. He was, in fact, the\nsort of man who had made England and America what they were. The luck\nhad been against him so far, but that was by the way. He was a mere\naggressive and acquisitive individual with no sense of the State,\nno habitual loyalty, no devotion, no code of honour, no code even of\ncourage. Now by a curious accident he found himself lifted out of his\nmarvellous modern world for a time, out of all the rush and confused\nappeals of it, and floating like a thing dead and disembodied between\nsea and sky. It was as if Heaven was experimenting with him, had picked\nhim out as a sample from the English millions, to look at him more\nnearly, and to see what was happening to the soul of man. But what\nHeaven made of him in that case I cannot profess to imagine, for I have\nlong since abandoned all theories about the ideals and satisfactions of\nHeaven.\n\nTo be alone in a balloon at a height of fourteen or fifteen thousand\nfeet--and to that height Bert Smallways presently rose is like nothing\nelse in human experience. It is one of the supreme things possible to\nman. No flying machine can ever better it. It is to pass extraordinarily\nout of human things. It is to be still and alone to an unprecedented\ndegree. It is solitude without the suggestion of intervention; it is\ncalm without a single irrelevant murmur. It is to see the sky. No sound\nreaches one of all the roar and jar of humanity, the air is clear and\nsweet beyond the thought of defilement. No bird, no insect comes so\nhigh. No wind blows ever in a balloon, no breeze rustles, for it moves\nwith the wind and is itself a part of the atmosphere. Once started, it\ndoes not rock nor sway; you cannot feel whether it rises or falls. Bert\nfelt acutely cold, but he wasn\'t mountain-sick; he put on the coat and\novercoat and gloves Butteridge had discarded--put them over the \"Desert\nDervish\" sheet that covered his cheap best suit--and sat very still for\na long, time, overawed by the new-found quiet of the world. Above him\nwas the light, translucent, billowing globe of shining brown oiled silk\nand the blazing sunlight and the great deep blue dome of the sky.\n\nBelow, far below, was a torn floor of sunlit cloud slashed by enormous\nrents through which he saw the sea.\n\nIf you had been watching him from below, you would have seen his head, a\nmotionless little black knob, sticking out from the car first of all for\na long time on one side, and then vanishing to reappear after a time at\nsome other point.\n\nHe wasn\'t in the least degree uncomfortable nor afraid. He did think\nthat as this uncontrollable thing had thus rushed up the sky with him it\nmight presently rush down again, but this consideration did not trouble\nhim very much. Essentially his state was wonder. There is no fear nor\ntrouble in balloons--until they descend.\n\n\"Gollys!\" he said at last, feeling a need for talking; \"it\'s better than\na motor-bike.\"\n\n\"It\'s all right!\"\n\n\"I suppose they\'re telegraphing about, about me.\"...\n\nThe second hour found him examining the equipment of the car with great\nparticularity. Above him was the throat of the balloon bunched and tied\ntogether, but with an open lumen through which Bert could peer up into\na vast, empty, quiet interior, and out of which descended two fine cords\nof unknown import, one white, one crimson, to pockets below the ring.\nThe netting about the balloon-ended in cords attached to the ring, a big\nsteel-bound hoop to which the car was slung by ropes. From it depended\nthe trail rope and grapnel, and over the sides of the car were a number\nof canvas bags that Bert decided must be ballast to \"chuck down\" if the\nballoon fell. (\"Not much falling just yet,\" said Bert.)\n\nThere were an aneroid and another box-shaped instrument hanging from the\nring. The latter had an ivory plate bearing \"statoscope\" and other words\nin French, and a little indicator quivered and waggled, between Montee\nand Descente. \"That\'s all right,\" said Bert. \"That tells if you\'re\ngoing up or down.\" On the crimson padded seat of the balloon there lay a\ncouple of rugs and a Kodak, and in opposite corners of the bottom of\nthe car were an empty champagne bottle and a glass. \"Refreshments,\" said\nBert meditatively, tilting the empty bottle. Then he had a brilliant\nidea. The two padded bed-like seats, each with blankets and mattress, he\nperceived, were boxes, and within he found Mr. Butteridge\'s conception\nof an adequate equipment for a balloon ascent: a hamper which included\na game pie, a Roman pie, a cold fowl, tomatoes, lettuce, ham sandwiches,\nshrimp sandwiches, a large cake, knives and forks and paper plates,\nself-heating tins of coffee and cocoa, bread, butter, and marmalade,\nseveral carefully packed bottles of champagne, bottles of Perrier water,\nand a big jar of water for washing, a portfolio, maps, and a compass,\na rucksack containing a number of conveniences, including curling-tongs\nand hair-pins, a cap with ear-flaps, and so forth.\n\n\"A \'ome from \'ome,\" said Bert, surveying this provision as he tied the\near-flaps under his chin. He looked over the side of the car. Far below\nwere the shining clouds. They had thickened so that the whole world was\nhidden. Southward they were piled in great snowy masses, so that he was\nhalf disposed to think them mountains; northward and eastward they were\nin wavelike levels, and blindingly sunlit.\n\n\"Wonder how long a balloon keeps up?\" he said.\n\nHe imagined he was not moving, so insensibly did the monster drift with\nthe air about it. \"No good coming down till we shift a bit,\" he said.\n\nHe consulted the statoscope.\n\n\"Still Monty,\" he said.\n\n\"Wonder what would happen if you pulled a cord?\"\n\n\"No,\" he decided. \"I ain\'t going to mess it about.\"\n\nAfterwards he did pull both the ripping- and the valve-cords, but, as\nMr. Butteridge had already discovered, they had fouled a fold of silk in\nthe throat. Nothing happened. But for that little hitch the ripping-cord\nwould have torn the balloon open as though it had been slashed by a\nsword, and hurled Mr. Smallways to eternity at the rate of some thousand\nfeet a second. \"No go!\" he said, giving it a final tug. Then he lunched.\n\nHe opened a bottle of champagne, which, as soon as he cut the wire, blew\nits cork out with incredible violence, and for the most part followed\nit into space. Bert, however, got about a tumblerful. \"Atmospheric\npressure,\" said Bert, finding a use at last for the elementary\nphysiography of his seventh-standard days. \"I\'ll have to be more careful\nnext time. No good wastin\' drink.\"\n\nThen he routed about for matches to utilise Mr. Butteridge\'s cigars; but\nhere again luck was on his side, and he couldn\'t find any wherewith\nto set light to the gas above him. Or else he would have dropped in a\nflare, a splendid but transitory pyrotechnic display. \"\'Eng old Grubb!\"\nsaid Bert, slapping unproductive pockets. \"\'E didn\'t ought to \'ave kep\'\nmy box. \'E\'s always sneaking matches.\"\n\nHe reposed for a time. Then he got up, paddled about, rearranged the\nballast bags on the floor, watched the clouds for a time, and turned\nover the maps on the locker. Bert liked maps, and he spent some time in\ntrying to find one of France or the Channel; but they were all British\nordnance maps of English counties. That set him thinking about languages\nand trying to recall his seventh-standard French. \"Je suis Anglais.\nC\'est une meprise. Je suis arrive par accident ici,\" he decided upon\nas convenient phrases. Then it occurred to him that he would entertain\nhimself by reading Mr. Butteridge\'s letters and examining his\npocket-book, and in this manner he whiled away the afternoon.\n\n2\n\nHe sat upon the padded locker, wrapped about very carefully, for the\nair, though calm, was exhilaratingly cold and clear. He was wearing\nfirst a modest suit of blue serge and all the unpretending underwear\nof a suburban young man of fashion, with sandal-like cycling-shoes and\nbrown stockings drawn over his trouser ends; then the perforated\nsheet proper to a Desert Dervish; then the coat and waistcoat and big\nfur-trimmed overcoat of Mr. Butteridge; then a lady\'s large fur cloak,\nand round his knees a blanket. Over his head was a tow wig, surmounted\nby a large cap of Mr. Butteridge\'s with the flaps down over his ears.\nAnd some fur sleeping-boots of Mr. Butteridge\'s warmed his feet. The car\nof the balloon was small and neat, some bags of ballast the untidiest of\nits contents, and he had found a light folding-table and put it at his\nelbow, and on that was a glass with champagne. And about him, above and\nbelow, was space--such a clear emptiness and silence of space as only\nthe aeronaut can experience.\n\nHe did not know where he might be drifting, or what might happen next.\nHe accepted this state of affairs with a serenity creditable to the\nSmallways\' courage, which one might reasonably have expected to be of a\nmore degenerate and contemptible quality altogether. His impression was\nthat he was bound to come down somewhere, and that then, if he wasn\'t\nsmashed, some one, some \"society\" perhaps, would probably pack him and\nthe balloon back to England. If not, he would ask very firmly for the\nBritish Consul.\n\n\"Le consuelo Britannique,\" he decided this would be. \"Apportez moi a le\nconsuelo Britannique, s\'il vous plait,\" he would say, for he was by\nno means ignorant of French. In the meanwhile, he found the intimate\naspects of Mr. Butteridge an interesting study.\n\nThere were letters of an entirely private character addressed to Mr.\nButteridge, and among others several love-letters of a devouring sort\nin a large feminine hand. These are no business of ours, and one remarks\nwith regret that Bert read them.\n\nWhen he had read them he remarked, \"Gollys!\" in an awestricken tone, and\nthen, after a long interval, \"I wonder if that was her?\n\n\"Lord!\"\n\nHe mused for a time.\n\nHe resumed his exploration of the Butteridge interior. It included\na number of press cuttings of interviews and also several letters\nin German, then some in the same German handwriting, but in English.\n\"Hul-LO!\" said Bert.\n\nOne of the latter, the first he took, began with an apology to\nButteridge for not writing to him in English before, and for the\ninconvenience and delay that had been caused him by that, and went on\nto matter that Bert found exciting in, the highest degree. \"We can\nunderstand entirely the difficulties of your position, and that you\nshall possibly be watched at the present juncture.--But, sir, we do not\nbelieve that any serious obstacles will be put in your way if you wished\nto endeavour to leave the country and come to us with your plans by the\ncustomary routes--either via Dover, Ostend, Boulogne, or Dieppe. We\nfind it difficult to think you are right in supposing yourself to be in\ndanger of murder for your invaluable invention.\"\n\n\"Funny!\" said Bert, and meditated.\n\nThen he went through the other letters.\n\n\"They seem to want him to come,\" said Bert, \"but they don\'t seem hurting\nthemselves to get \'im. Or else they\'re shamming don\'t care to get his\nprices down.\n\n\"They don\'t quite seem to be the gov\'ment,\" he reflected, after an\ninterval. \"It\'s more like some firm\'s paper. All this printed stuff at\nthe top. Drachenflieger. Drachenballons. Ballonstoffe. Kugelballons.\nGreek to me.\n\n\"But he was trying to sell his blessed secret abroad. That\'s all right.\nNo Greek about that! Gollys! Here IS the secret!\"\n\nHe tumbled off the seat, opened the locker, and had the portfolio open\nbefore him on the folding-table. It was full of drawings done in the\npeculiar flat style and conventional colours engineers adopt. And, in,\naddition there were some rather under-exposed photographs, obviously\ndone by an amateur, at close quarters, of the actual machine\'s\nmutterings had made, in its shed near the Crystal Palace. Bert found he\nwas trembling. \"Lord\" he said, \"here am I and the whole blessed secret\nof flying--lost up here on the roof of everywhere.\n\n\"Let\'s see!\" He fell to studying the drawings and comparing them with\nthe photographs. They puzzled him. Half of them seemed to be missing.\nHe tried to imagine how they fitted together, and found the effort too\ngreat for his mind.\n\n\"It\'s tryin\',\" said Bert. \"I wish I\'d been brought up to the\nengineering. If I could only make it out!\"\n\nHe went to the side of the car and remained for a time staring with\nunseeing eyes at a huge cluster of great clouds--a cluster of slowly\ndissolving Monte Rosas, sunlit below. His attention was arrested by a\nstrange black spot that moved over them. It alarmed him. It was a\nblack spot moving slowly with him far below, following him down there,\nindefatigably, over the cloud mountains. Why should such a thing follow\nhim? What could it be?...\n\nHe had an inspiration. \"Uv course!\" he said. It was the shadow of the\nballoon. But he still watched it dubiously for a time.\n\nHe returned to the plans on the table.\n\nHe spent a long afternoon between his struggles to understand them and\nfits of meditation. He evolved a remarkable new sentence in French.\n\n\"Voici, Mossoo!--Je suis un inventeur Anglais. Mon nom est Butteridge.\nBeh. oo. teh. teh. eh. arr. I. deh. geh. eh. J\'avais ici pour vendre le\nsecret de le flying-machine. Comprenez? Vendre pour l\'argent tout\nsuite, l\'argent en main. Comprenez? C\'est le machine a jouer dans l\'air.\nComprenez? C\'est le machine a faire l\'oiseau. Comprenez? Balancer? Oui,\nexactement! Battir l\'oiseau en fait, a son propre jeu. Je desire de\nvendre ceci a votre government national. Voulez vous me directer la?\n\n\"Bit rummy, I expect, from the point of view of grammar,\" said Bert,\n\"but they ought to get the hang of it all right.\n\n\"But then, if they arst me to explain the blessed thing?\"\n\nHe returned in a worried way to the plans. \"I don\'t believe it\'s all\nhere!\" he said....\n\nHe got more and more perplexed up there among the clouds as to what he\nshould do with this wonderful find of his. At any moment, so far as he\nknew he might descend among he knew not what foreign people.\n\n\"It\'s the chance of my life!\" he said.\n\nIt became more and more manifest to him that it wasn\'t. \"Directly I come\ndown they\'ll telegraph--put it in the papers. Butteridge\'ll know of it\nand come along--on my track.\"\n\nButteridge would be a terrible person to be on any one\'s track.\nBert thought of the great black moustaches, the triangular nose, the\nsearching bellow and the glare. His afternoon\'s dream of a marvellous\nseizure and sale of the great Butteridge secret crumpled up in his mind,\ndissolved, and vanished. He awoke to sanity again.\n\n\"Wouldn\'t do. What\'s the good of thinking of it?\" He proceeded slowly\nand reluctantly to replace the Butteridge papers in pockets and\nportfolio as he had found them. He became aware of a splendid golden\nlight upon the balloon above him, and of a new warmth in the blue dome\nof the sky. He stood up and beheld the sun, a great ball of blinding\ngold, setting upon a tumbled sea of gold-edged crimson and purple\nclouds, strange and wonderful beyond imagining. Eastward cloud-land\nstretched for ever, darkling blue, and it seemed to Bert the whole round\nhemisphere of the world was under his eyes.\n\nThen far, away over the blue he caught sight of three long, dark shapes\nlike hurrying fish that drove one after the other, as porpoises follow\none another in the water. They were very fish-like indeed--with tails.\nIt was an unconvincing impression in that light. He blinked his eyes,\nstared again, and they had vanished. For a long time he scrutinised\nthose remote blue levels and saw no more....\n\n\"Wonder if I ever saw anything,\" he said, and then: \"There ain\'t such\nthings....\"\n\nDown went the sun and down, not diving steeply, but passing northward as\nit sank, and then suddenly daylight and the expansive warmth of daylight\nhad gone altogether, and the index of the statoscope quivered over to\nDescente.\n\n3\n\n\"NOW what\'s going to \'appen?\" said Bert.\n\nHe found the cold, grey cloud wilderness rising towards him with a wide,\nslow steadiness. As he sank down among them the clouds ceased to seem\nthe snowclad mountain-slopes they had resembled heretofore, became\nunsubstantial, confessed an immense silent drift and eddy in their\nsubstance. For a moment, when he was nearly among their twilight masses,\nhis descent was checked. Then abruptly the sky was hidden, the last\nvestiges of daylight gone, and he was falling rapidly in an evening\ntwilight through a whirl of fine snowflakes that streamed past him\ntowards the zenith, that drifted in upon the things about him and\nmelted, that touched his face with ghostly fingers. He shivered. His\nbreath came smoking from his lips, and everything was instantly bedewed\nand wet.\n\nHe had an impression of a snowstorm pouring with unexampled and\nincreasing fury UPWARD; then he realised that he was falling faster and\nfaster.\n\nImperceptibly a sound grew upon his ears. The great silence of the world\nwas at an end. What was this confused sound?\n\nHe craned his head over the side, concerned, perplexed.\n\nFirst he seemed to see, and then not to see. Then he saw clearly little\nedges of foam pursuing each other, and a wide waste of weltering waters\nbelow him. Far away was a pilot boat with a big sail bearing dim black\nletters, and a little pinkish-yellow light, and it was rolling and\npitching, rolling and pitching in a gale, while he could feel no wind\nat, all. Soon the sound of waters was loud and near. He was dropping,\ndropping--into the sea!\n\nHe became convulsively active.\n\n\"Ballast!\" he cried, and seized a little sack from the floor, and heaved\nit overboard. He did not wait for the effect of that, but sent another\nafter it. He looked over in time to see a minute white splash in the dim\nwaters below him, and then he was back in the snow and clouds again.\n\nHe sent out quite needlessly a third sack of ballast and a fourth, and\npresently had the immense satisfaction of soaring up out of the damp and\nchill into the clear, cold, upper air in which the day still lingered.\n\"Thang-God!\" he said, with all his heart.\n\nA few stars now had pierced the blue, and in the east there shone\nbrightly a prolate moon.\n\n4\n\nThat first downward plunge filled Bert with a haunting sense of\nboundless waters below. It was a summer\'s night, but it seemed to him,\nnevertheless, extraordinarily long. He had a feeling of insecurity that\nhe fancied quite irrationally the sunrise would dispel. Also he was\nhungry. He felt, in the dark, in the locker, put his fingers in\nthe Roman pie, and got some sandwiches, and he also opened rather\nsuccessfully a half-bottle of champagne. That warmed and restored him,\nhe grumbled at Grubb about the matches, wrapped himself up warmly on the\nlocker, and dozed for a time. He got up once or twice to make sure that\nhe was still securely high above the sea. The first time the moonlit\nclouds were white and dense, and the shadow of the balloon ran athwart\nthem like a dog that followed; afterwards they seemed thinner. As he lay\nstill, staring up at the huge dark balloon above, he made a discovery.\nHis--or rather Mr. Butteridge\'s--waistcoat rustled as he breathed. It\nwas lined with papers. But Bert could not see to get them out or examine\nthem, much as he wished to do so....\n\nHe was awakened by the crowing of cocks, the barking of dogs, and a\nclamour of birds. He was driving slowly at a low level over a broad land\nlit golden by sunrise under a clear sky. He stared out upon hedgeless,\nwell-cultivated fields intersected by roads, each lined with\ncable-bearing red poles. He had just passed over a compact, whitewashed,\nvillage with a straight church tower and steep red-tiled roofs. A number\nof peasants, men and women, in shiny blouses and lumpish footwear, stood\nregarding him, arrested on their way to work. He was so low that the end\nof his rope was trailing.\n\nHe stared out at these people. \"I wonder how you land,\" he thought.\n\n\"S\'pose I OUGHT to land?\"\n\nHe found himself drifting down towards a mono-rail line, and hastily\nflung out two or three handfuls of ballast to clear it.\n\n\"Lemme see! One might say just \'Pre\'nez\'! Wish I knew the French for\ntake hold of the rope!... I suppose they are French?\"\n\nHe surveyed the country again. \"Might be Holland. Or Luxembourg. Or\nLorraine \'s far as _I_ know. Wonder what those big affairs over there\nare? Some sort of kiln. Prosperous-looking country...\"\n\nThe respectability of the country\'s appearance awakened answering chords\nin his nature.\n\n\"Make myself a bit ship-shape first,\" he said.\n\nHe resolved to rise a little and get rid of his wig (which now felt\nhot on his head), and so forth. He threw out a bag of ballast, and was\nastonished to find himself careering up through the air very rapidly.\n\n\"Blow!\" said Mr. Smallways. \"I\'ve over-done the ballast trick.... Wonder\nwhen I shall get down again?... brekfus\' on board, anyhow.\"\n\nHe removed his cap and wig, for the air was warm, and an improvident\nimpulse made him cast the latter object overboard. The statoscope\nresponded with a vigorous swing to Monte.\n\n\"The blessed thing goes up if you only LOOK overboard,\" he remarked, and\nassailed the locker. He found among other items several tins of liquid\ncocoa containing explicit directions for opening that he followed with\nminute care. He pierced the bottom with the key provided in the holes\nindicated, and forthwith the can grew from cold to hotter and hotter,\nuntil at last he could scarcely touch it, and then he opened the can at\nthe other end, and there was his cocoa smoking, without the use of match\nor flame of any sort. It was an old invention, but new to Bert. There\nwas also ham and marmalade and bread, so that he had a really very\ntolerable breakfast indeed.\n\nThen he took off his overcoat, for the sunshine was now inclined to be\nhot, and that reminded him of the rustling he had heard in the night.\nHe took off the waistcoat and examined it. \"Old Butteridge won\'t like\nme unpicking this.\" He hesitated, and finally proceeded to unpick it. He\nfound the missing drawings of the lateral rotating planes, on which the\nwhole stability of the flying machine depended.\n\nAn observant angel would have seen Bert sitting for a long time after\nthis discovery in a state of intense meditation. Then at last he rose\nwith an air of inspiration, took Mr. Butteridge\'s ripped, demolished,\nand ransacked waistcoat, and hurled it from the balloon whence it\nfluttered down slowly and eddyingly until at last it came to rest with\na contented flop upon the face of German tourist sleeping peacefully\nbeside the Hohenweg near Wildbad. Also this sent the balloon higher,\nand so into a position still more convenient for observation by our\nimaginary angel who would next have seen Mr. Smallways tear open his own\njacket and waistcoat, remove his collar, open his shirt, thrust his hand\ninto his bosom, and tear his heart out--or at least, if not his heart,\nsome large bright scarlet object. If the observer, overcoming a thrill\nof celestial horror, had scrutinised this scarlet object more narrowly,\none of Bert\'s most cherished secrets, one of his essential weaknesses,\nwould have been laid bare. It was a red-flannel chest-protector, one of\nthose large quasi-hygienic objects that with pills and medicines take\nthe place of beneficial relics and images among the Protestant peoples\nof Christendom. Always Bert wore this thing; it was his cherished\ndelusion, based on the advice of a shilling fortune-teller at Margate,\nthat he was weak in the lungs.\n\nHe now proceeded to unbutton his fetish, to attack it with a penknife,\nand to thrust the new-found plans between the two layers of imitation\nSaxony flannel of which it was made. Then with the help of Mr.\nButteridge\'s small shaving mirror and his folding canvas basin he\nreadjusted his costume with the gravity of a man who has taken an\nirrevocable step in life, buttoned up his jacket, cast the white sheet\nof the Desert Dervish on one side, washed temperately, shaved,\nresumed the big cap and the fur overcoat, and, much refreshed by these\nexercises, surveyed the country below him.\n\nIt was indeed a spectacle of incredible magnificence. If perhaps it was\nnot so strange and magnificent as the sunlit cloudland of the previous\nday, it was at any rate infinitely more interesting.\n\nThe air was at its utmost clearness and except to the south and\nsouth-west there was not a cloud in the sky. The country was hilly,\nwith occasional fir plantations and bleak upland spaces, but also with\nnumerous farms, and the hills were deeply intersected by the gorges of\nseveral winding rivers interrupted at intervals by the banked-up\nponds and weirs of electric generating wheels. It was dotted with\nbright-looking, steep-roofed, villages, and each showed a distinctive\nand interesting church beside its wireless telegraph steeple; here and\nthere were large chateaux and parks and white roads, and paths lined\nwith red and white cable posts were extremely conspicuous in the\nlandscape. There were walled enclosures like gardens and rickyards and\ngreat roofs of barns and many electric dairy centres. The uplands were\nmottled with cattle. At places he would see the track of one of the\nold railroads (converted now to mono-rails) dodging through tunnels\nand crossing embankments, and a rushing hum would mark the passing of a\ntrain. Everything was extraordinarily clear as well as minute. Once or\ntwice he saw guns and soldiers, and was reminded of the stir of military\npreparations he had witnessed on the Bank Holiday in England; but there\nwas nothing to tell him that these military preparations were abnormal\nor to explain an occasional faint irregular firing Of guns that drifted\nup to him....\n\n\"Wish I knew how to get down,\" said Bert, ten thousand feet or so above\nit all, and gave himself to much futile tugging at the red and white\ncords. Afterwards he made a sort of inventory of the provisions. Life in\nthe high air was giving him an appalling appetite, and it seemed to him\ndiscreet at this stage to portion out his supply into rations. So far as\nhe could see he might pass a week in the air.\n\nAt first all the vast panorama below had been as silent as a painted\npicture. But as the day wore on and the gas diffused slowly from the\nballoon, it sank earthward again, details increased, men became more\nvisible, and he began to hear the whistle and moan of trains and cars,\nsounds of cattle, bugles and kettle drums, and presently even men\'s\nvoices. And at last his guide-rope was trailing again, and he found it\npossible to attempt a landing. Once or twice as the rope dragged over\ncables he found his hair erect with electricity, and once he had a\nslight shock, and sparks snapped about the car. He took these things\namong the chances of the voyage. He had one idea now very clear in his\nmind, and that was to drop the iron grapnel that hung from the ring.\n\nFrom the first this attempt was unfortunate, perhaps because the place\nfor descent was ill-chosen. A balloon should come down in an empty open\nspace, and he chose a crowd. He made his decision suddenly, and without\nproper reflection. As he trailed, Bert saw ahead of him one of the\nmost attractive little towns in the world--a cluster of steep gables\nsurmounted by a high church tower and diversified with trees, walled,\nand with a fine, large gateway opening out upon a tree-lined high road.\nAll the wires and cables of the countryside converged upon it like\nguests to entertainment. It had a most home-like and comfortable\nquality, and it was made gayer by abundant flags. Along the road a\nquantity of peasant folk, in big pair-wheeled carts and afoot, were\ncoming and going, besides an occasional mono-rail car; and at the\ncar-junction, under the trees outside the town, was a busy little\nfair of booths. It seemed a warm, human, well-rooted, and altogether\ndelightful place to Bert. He came low over the tree-tops, with his\ngrapnel ready to throw and so anchor him--a curious, interested, and\ninteresting guest, so his imagination figured it, in the very middle of\nit all.\n\nHe thought of himself performing feats with the sign language and chance\nlinguistics amidst a circle of admiring rustics....\n\nAnd then the chapter of adverse accidents began.\n\nThe rope made itself unpopular long before the crowd had fully realised\nhis advent over the trees. An elderly and apparently intoxicated peasant\nin a shiny black hat, and carrying a large crimson umbrella, caught\nsight of it first as it trailed past him, and was seized with a\ndiscreditable ambition to kill it. He pursued it, briskly with\nunpleasant cries. It crossed the road obliquely, splashed into a pail of\nmilk upon a stall, and slapped its milky tail athwart a motor-car load\nof factory girls halted outside the town gates. They screamed loudly.\nPeople looked up and saw Bert making what he meant to be genial\nsalutations, but what they considered, in view of the feminine outcry,\nto be insulting gestures. Then the car hit the roof of the gatehouse\nsmartly, snapped a flag staff, played a tune upon some telegraph wires,\nand sent a broken wire like a whip-lash to do its share in accumulating\nunpopularity. Bert, by clutching convulsively, just escaped being\npitched headlong. Two young soldiers and several peasants shouted things\nup to him and shook fists at him and began to run in pursuit as he\ndisappeared over the wall into the town.\n\nAdmiring rustics, indeed!\n\nThe balloon leapt at once, in the manner of balloons when part of their\nweight is released by touching down, with a sort of flippancy, and\nin another moment Bert was over a street crowded with peasants\nand soldiers, that opened into a busy market-square. The wave of\nunfriendliness pursued him.\n\n\"Grapnel,\" said Bert, and then with an afterthought shouted, \"TETES\nthere, you! I say! I say! TETES. \'Eng it!\"\n\nThe grapnel smashed down a steeply sloping roof, followed by an\navalanche of broken tiles, jumped the street amidst shrieks and cries,\nand smashed into a plate-glass window with an immense and sickening\nimpact. The balloon rolled nauseatingly, and the car pitched. But the\ngrapnel had not held. It emerged at once bearing on one fluke, with\na ridiculous air of fastidious selection, a small child\'s chair, and\npursued by a maddened shopman. It lifted its catch, swung about with an\nappearance of painful indecision amidst a roar of wrath, and dropped\nit at last neatly, and as if by inspiration, over the head of a peasant\nwoman in charge of an assortment of cabbages in the market-place.\n\nEverybody now was aware of the balloon. Everybody was either trying to\ndodge the grapnel or catch the trail rope. With a pendulum-like swoop\nthrough the crowd, that sent people flying right and left the grapnel\ncame to earth again, tried for and missed a stout gentleman in a blue\nsuit and a straw hat, smacked away a trestle from under a stall of\nhaberdashery, made a cyclist soldier in knickerbockers leap like\na chamois, and secured itself uncertainly among the hind-legs of a\nsheep--which made convulsive, ungenerous efforts to free itself, and was\ndragged into a position of rest against a stone cross in the middle of\nthe place. The balloon pulled up with a jerk. In another moment a score\nof willing hands were tugging it earthward. At the same instant Bert\nbecame aware for the first time of a fresh breeze blowing about him.\n\nFor some seconds he stood staggering in the car, which now swayed\nsickeningly, surveying the exasperated crowd below him and trying to\ncollect his mind. He was extraordinarily astonished at this run of\nmishaps. Were the people really so annoyed? Everybody seemed angry\nwith him. No one seemed interested or amused by his arrival.\nA disproportionate amount of the outcry had the flavour of\nimprecation--had, indeed a strong flavour of riot. Several greatly\nuniformed officials in cocked hats struggled in vain to control the\ncrowd. Fists and sticks were shaken. And when Bert saw a man on the\noutskirts of the crowd run to a haycart and get a brightly pronged\npitch-fork, and a blue-clad soldier unbuckle his belt, his rising doubt\nwhether this little town was after all such a good place for a landing\nbecame a certainty.\n\nHe had clung to the fancy that they would make something of a hero of\nhim. Now he knew that he was mistaken.\n\nHe was perhaps ten feet above the people when he made his decision.\nHis paralysis ceased. He leapt up on the seat, and, at imminent risk of\nfalling headlong, released the grapnel-rope from the toggle that held\nit, sprang on to the trail rope and disengaged that also. A hoarse shout\nof disgust greeted the descent of the grapnel-rope and the swift leap\nof the balloon, and something--he fancied afterwards it was a\nturnip--whizzed by his head. The trail-rope followed its fellow. The\ncrowd seemed to jump away from him. With an immense and horrifying\nrustle the balloon brushed against a telephone pole, and for a tense\ninstant he anticipated either an electric explosion or a bursting of the\noiled silk, or both. But fortune was with him.\n\nIn another second he was cowering in the bottom of the car, and released\nfrom the weight of the grapnel and the two ropes, rushing up once more\nthrough the air. For a time he remained crouching, and when at last he\nlooked out again the little town was very small and travelling, with the\nrest of lower Germany, in a circular orbit round and round the car--or\nat least it appeared to be doing that. When he got used to it, he found\nthis rotation of the balloon rather convenient; it saved moving about in\nthe car.\n\n5\n\nLate in the afternoon of a pleasant summer day in the year 191-, if one\nmay borrow a mode of phrasing that once found favour with the readers of\nthe late G. P. R. James, a solitary balloonist--replacing the solitary\nhorseman of the classic romances--might have been observed wending his\nway across Franconia in a north-easterly direction, and at a height of\nabout eleven thousand feet above the sea and still spindling slowly. His\nhead was craned over the side of the car, and he surveyed the country\nbelow with an expression of profound perplexity; ever and again his lips\nshaped inaudible words. \"Shootin\' at a chap,\" for example, and \"I\'ll\ncome down right enough soon as I find out \'ow.\" Over the side of\nthe basket the robe of the Desert Dervish was hanging, an appeal for\nconsideration, an ineffectual white flag.\n\nHe was now very distinctly aware that the world below him, so far from\nbeing the naive countryside of his earlier imaginings that day, sleepily\nunconscious of him and capable of being amazed and nearly reverential\nat his descent, was acutely irritated by his career, and extremely\nimpatient with the course he was taking.--But indeed it was not he\nwho took that course, but his masters, the winds of heaven. Mysterious\nvoices spoke to him in his ear, jerking the words up to him by means\nof megaphones, in a weird and startling manner, in a great variety of\nlanguages. Official-looking persons had signalled to him by means of\nflag flapping and arm waving. On the whole a guttural variant of English\nprevailed in the sentences that alighted upon the balloon; chiefly he\nwas told to \"gome down or you will be shot.\"\n\n\"All very well,\" said Bert, \"but \'ow?\"\n\nThen they shot a little wide of the car. Latterly he had been shot at\nsix or seven times, and once the bullet had gone by with a sound so\npersuasively like the tearing of silk that he had resigned himself to\nthe prospect of a headlong fall. But either they were aiming near him or\nthey had missed, and as yet nothing was torn but the air about him--and\nhis anxious soul.\n\nHe was now enjoying a respite from these attentions, but he felt it was\nat best an interlude, and he was doing what he could to appreciate\nhis position. Incidentally he was having some hot coffee and pie in an\nuntidy inadvertent manner, with an eye fluttering nervously over the\nside of the car. At first he had ascribed the growing interest in his\ncareer to his ill-conceived attempt to land in the bright little upland\ntown, but now he was beginning to realise that the military rather than\nthe civil arm was concerned about him.\n\nHe was quite involuntarily playing that weird mysterious part--the part\nof an International Spy. He was seeing secret things. He had, in fact,\ncrossed the designs of no less a power than the German Empire, he had\nblundered into the hot focus of Welt-Politik, he was drifting helplessly\ntowards the great Imperial secret, the immense aeronautic park that had\nbeen established at a headlong pace in Franconia to develop silently,\nswiftly, and on an immense scale the great discoveries of Hunstedt and\nStossel, and so to give Germany before all other nations a fleet of\nairships, the air power and the Empire of the world.\n\nLater, just before they shot him down altogether, Bert saw that great\narea of passionate work, warm lit in the evening light, a great area\nof upland on which the airships lay like a herd of grazing monsters at\ntheir feed. It was a vast busy space stretching away northward as far as\nhe could see, methodically cut up into numbered sheds, gasometers, squad\nencampments, storage areas, interlaced with the omnipresent mono-rail\nlines, and altogether free from overhead wires or cables. Everywhere was\nthe white, black and yellow of Imperial Germany, everywhere the black\neagles spread their wings. Even without these indications, the large\nvigorous neatness of everything would have marked it German. Vast\nmultitudes of men went to and fro, many in white and drab fatigue\nuniforms busy about the balloons, others drilling in sensible drab. Here\nand there a full uniform glittered. The airships chiefly engaged his\nattention, and he knew at once it was three of these he had seen on\nthe previous night, taking advantage of the cloud welkin to manoeuvre\nunobserved. They were altogether fish-like. For the great airships with\nwhich Germany attacked New York in her last gigantic effort for\nworld supremacy--before humanity realized that world supremacy was a\ndream--were the lineal descendants of the Zeppelin airship that flew\nover Lake Constance in 1906, and of the Lebaudy navigables that made\ntheir memorable excursions over Paris in 1907 and 1908.\n\nThese German airships were held together by rib-like skeletons of steel\nand aluminium and a stout inelastic canvas outer-skin, within which was\nan impervious rubber gas-bag, cut up by transverse dissepiments into\nfrom fifty to a hundred compartments. These were all absolutely gas\ntight and filled with hydrogen, and the entire aerostat was kept at any\nlevel by means of a long internal balloonette of oiled and toughened\nsilk canvas, into which air could be forced and from which it could be\npumped. So the airship could be made either heavier or lighter than air,\nand losses of weight through the consumption of fuel, the casting\nof bombs and so forth, could also be compensated by admitting air to\nsections of the general gas-bag. Ultimately that made a highly explosive\nmixture; but in all these matters risks must be taken and guarded\nagainst. There was a steel axis to the whole affair, a central backbone\nwhich terminated in the engine and propeller, and the men and magazines\nwere forward in a series of cabins under the expanded headlike forepart.\nThe engine, which was of the extraordinarily powerful Pforzheim type,\nthat supreme triumph of German invention, was worked by wires from this\nforepart, which was indeed the only really habitable part of the ship.\nIf anything went wrong, the engineers went aft along a rope ladder\nbeneath the frame. The tendency of the whole affair to roll was partly\ncorrected by a horizontal lateral fin on either side, and steering was\nchiefly effected by two vertical fins, which normally lay back like\ngill-flaps on either side of the head. It was indeed a most complete\nadaptation of the fish form to aerial conditions, the position of\nswimming bladder, eyes, and brain being, however, below instead of\nabove. A striking, and unfish-like feature was the apparatus for\nwireless telegraphy that dangled from the forward cabin--that is to say,\nunder the chin of the fish.\n\nThese monsters were capable of ninety miles an hour in a calm, so that\nthey could face and make headway against nearly everything except\nthe fiercest tornado. They varied in length from eight hundred to two\nthousand feet, and they had a carrying power of from seventy to two\nhundred tons. How many Germany possessed history does not record, but\nBert counted nearly eighty great bulks receding in perspective during\nhis brief inspection. Such were the instruments on which she chiefly\nrelied to sustain her in her repudiation of the Monroe Doctrine and her\nbold bid for a share in the empire of the New World. But not\naltogether did she rely on these; she had also a one-man bomb-throwing\nDrachenflieger of unknown value among the resources.\n\nBut the Drachenflieger were away in the second great aeronautic\npark east of Hamburg, and Bert Smallways saw nothing of them in the\nbird\'s-eye view he took of the Franconian establishment before they shot\nhim down very neatly. The bullet tore past him and made a sort of pop as\nit pierced his balloon--a pop that was followed by a rustling sigh and\na steady downward movement. And when in the confusion of the moment he\ndropped a bag of ballast, the Germans, very politely but firmly overcame\nhis scruples by shooting his balloon again twice.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV. THE GERMAN AIR-FLEET\n\n1\n\nOf all the productions of the human imagination that make the world in\nwhich Mr. Bert Smallways lived confusingly wonderful, there was none\nquite so strange, so headlong and disturbing, so noisy and persuasive\nand dangerous, as the modernisations of patriotism produced by imperial\nand international politics. In the soul of all men is a liking for kind,\na pride in one\'s own atmosphere, a tenderness for one\'s Mother speech\nand one\'s familiar land. Before the coming of the Scientific Age\nthis group of gentle and noble emotions had been a fine factor in the\nequipment of every worthy human being, a fine factor that had its less\namiable aspect in a usually harmless hostility to strange people, and a\nusually harmless detraction of strange lands. But with the wild rush of\nchange in the pace, scope, materials, scale, and possibilities of human\nlife that then occurred, the old boundaries, the old seclusions and\nseparations were violently broken down. All the old settled mental\nhabits and traditions of men found themselves not simply confronted by\nnew conditions, but by constantly renewed and changing new conditions.\nThey had no chance of adapting themselves. They were annihilated or\nperverted or inflamed beyond recognition.\n\nBert Smallways\' grandfather, in the days when Bun Hill was a village\nunder the sway of Sir Peter Bone\'s parent, had \"known his place\" to\nthe uttermost farthing, touched his hat to his betters, despised and\ncondescended to his inferiors, and hadn\'t changed an idea from the\ncradle to the grave. He was Kentish and English, and that meant hops,\nbeer, dog-rose\'s, and the sort of sunshine that was best in the world.\nNewspapers and politics and visits to \"Lunnon\" weren\'t for the likes of\nhim. Then came the change. These earlier chapters have given an idea of\nwhat happened to Bun Hill, and how the flood of novel things had poured\nover its devoted rusticity. Bert Smallways was only one of countless\nmillions in Europe and America and Asia who, instead of being born\nrooted in the soil, were born struggling in a torrent they never clearly\nunderstood. All the faiths of their fathers had been taken by surprise,\nand startled into the strangest forms and reactions. Particularly did\nthe fine old tradition of patriotism get perverted and distorted in the\nrush of the new times. Instead of the sturdy establishment in prejudice\nof Bert\'s grandfather, to whom the word \"Frenchified\" was the ultimate\nterm of contempt, there flowed through Bert\'s brain a squittering\nsuccession of thinly violent ideas about German competition, about\nthe Yellow Danger, about the Black Peril, about the White Man\'s\nBurthen--that is to say, Bert\'s preposterous right to muddle further the\nnaturally very muddled politics of the entirely similar little cads to\nhimself (except for a smear of brown) who smoked cigarettes and rode\nbicycles in Buluwayo, Kingston (Jamaica), or Bombay. These were Bert\'s\n\"Subject Races,\" and he was ready to die--by proxy in the person of any\none who cared to enlist--to maintain his hold upon that right. It kept\nhim awake at nights to think that he might lose it.\n\nThe essential fact of the politics of the age in which Bert Smallways\nlived--the age that blundered at last into the catastrophe of the War in\nthe Air--was a very simple one, if only people had had the intelligence\nto be simple about it. The development of Science had altered the scale\nof human affairs. By means of rapid mechanical traction, it had brought\nmen nearer together, so much nearer socially, economically, physically,\nthat the old separations into nations and kingdoms were no longer\npossible, a newer, wider synthesis was not only needed, but imperatively\ndemanded. Just as the once independent dukedoms of France had to fuse\ninto a nation, so now the nations had to adapt themselves to a wider\ncoalescence, they had to keep what was precious and possible, and\nconcede what was obsolete and dangerous. A saner world would have\nperceived this patent need for a reasonable synthesis, would have\ndiscussed it temperately, achieved and gone on to organise the great\ncivilisation that was manifestly possible to mankind. The world of\nBert Smallways did nothing of the sort. Its national governments, its\nnational interests, would not hear of anything so obvious; they were\ntoo suspicious of each other, too wanting in generous imaginations. They\nbegan to behave like ill-bred people in a crowded public car, to squeeze\nagainst one another, elbow, thrust, dispute and quarrel. Vain to\npoint out to them that they had only to rearrange themselves to be\ncomfortable. Everywhere, all over the world, the historian of the early\ntwentieth century finds the same thing, the flow and rearrangement\nof human affairs inextricably entangled by the old areas, the old\nprejudices and a sort of heated irascible stupidity, and everywhere\ncongested nations in inconvenient areas, slopping population and produce\ninto each other, annoying each other with tariffs, and every possible\ncommercial vexation, and threatening each other with navies and armies\nthat grew every year more portentous.\n\nIt is impossible now to estimate how much of the intellectual and\nphysical energy of the world was wasted in military preparation and\nequipment, but it was an enormous proportion. Great Britain spent upon\narmy and navy money and capacity, that directed into the channels\nof physical culture and education would have made the British the\naristocracy of the world. Her rulers could have kept the whole\npopulation learning and exercising up to the age of eighteen and made\na broad-chested and intelligent man of every Bert Smallways in the\nislands, had they given the resources they spent in war material to the\nmaking of men. Instead of which they waggled flags at him until he was\nfourteen, incited him to cheer, and then turned him out of school to\nbegin that career of private enterprise we have compactly recorded.\nFrance achieved similar imbecilities; Germany was, if possible worse;\nRussia under the waste and stresses of militarism festered towards\nbankruptcy and decay. All Europe was producing big guns and countless\nswarms of little Smallways. The Asiatic peoples had been forced in\nself-defence into a like diversion of the new powers science had brought\nthem. On the eve of the outbreak of the war there were six great powers\nin the world and a cluster of smaller ones, each armed to the teeth\nand straining every nerve to get ahead of the others in deadliness\nof equipment and military efficiency. The great powers were first the\nUnited States, a nation addicted to commerce, but roused to military\nnecessities by the efforts of Germany to expand into South America, and\nby the natural consequences of her own unwary annexations of land in the\nvery teeth of Japan. She maintained two immense fleets east and west,\nand internally she was in violent conflict between Federal and State\ngovernments upon the question of universal service in a defensive\nmilitia. Next came the great alliance of Eastern Asia, a close-knit\ncoalescence of China and Japan, advancing with rapid strides year by\nyear to predominance in the world\'s affairs. Then the German alliance\nstill struggled to achieve its dream of imperial expansion, and its\nimposition of the German language upon a forcibly united Europe. These\nwere the three most spirited and aggressive powers in the world. Far\nmore pacific was the British Empire, perilously scattered over the\nglobe, and distracted now by insurrectionary movements in Ireland\nand among all its Subject Races. It had given these subject races\ncigarettes, boots, bowler hats, cricket, race meetings, cheap revolvers,\npetroleum, the factory system of industry, halfpenny newspapers in\nboth English and the vernacular, inexpensive university degrees,\nmotor-bicycles and electric trams; it had produced a considerable\nliterature expressing contempt for the Subject Races, and rendered\nit freely accessible to them, and it had been content to believe that\nnothing would result from these stimulants because somebody once wrote\n\"the immemorial east\"; and also, in the inspired words of Kipling--\n\n East is east and west is west,\n And never the twain shall meet.\n\n\nInstead of which, Egypt, India, and the subject countries generally had\nproduced new generations in a state of passionate indignation and the\nutmost energy, activity and modernity. The governing class in Great\nBritain was slowly adapting itself to a new conception, of the Subject\nRaces as waking peoples, and finding its efforts to keep the Empire\ntogether under these, strains and changing ideas greatly impeded by\nthe entirely sporting spirit with which Bert Smallways at home (by the\nmillion) cast his vote, and by the tendency of his more highly\ncoloured equivalents to be disrespectful to irascible officials. Their\nimpertinence was excessive; it was no mere stone-throwing and shouting.\nThey would quote Burns at them and Mill and Darwin and confute them in\narguments.\n\nEven more pacific than the British Empire were France and its allies,\nthe Latin powers, heavily armed states indeed, but reluctant warriors,\nand in many ways socially and politically leading western civilisation.\nRussia was a pacific power perforce, divided within itself, torn between\nrevolutionaries and reactionaries who were equally incapable of social\nreconstruction, and so sinking towards a tragic disorder of chronic\npolitical vendetta. Wedged in among these portentous larger bulks,\nswayed and threatened by them, the smaller states of the world\nmaintained a precarious independence, each keeping itself armed as\ndangerously as its utmost ability could contrive.\n\nSo it came about that in every country a great and growing body of\nenergetic and inventive men was busied either for offensive or defensive\nends, in elaborating the apparatus of war, until the accumulating\ntensions should reach the breaking-point. Each power sought to keep its\npreparations secret, to hold new weapons in reserve, to anticipate and\nlearn the preparations of its rivals. The feeling of danger from fresh\ndiscoveries affected the patriotic imagination of every people in the\nworld. Now it was rumoured the British had an overwhelming gun, now the\nFrench an invincible rifle, now the Japanese a new explosive, now the\nAmericans a submarine that would drive every ironclad from the seas.\nEach time there would be a war panic.\n\nThe strength and heart of the nations was given to the thought of war,\nand yet the mass of their citizens was a teeming democracy as heedless\nof and unfitted for fighting, mentally, morally, physically, as any\npopulation has ever been--or, one ventures to add, could ever be. That\nwas the paradox of the time. It was a period altogether unique in\nthe world\'s history. The apparatus of warfare, the art and method of\nfighting, changed absolutely every dozen years in a stupendous progress\ntowards perfection, and people grew less and less warlike, and there was\nno war.\n\nAnd then at last it came. It came as a surprise to all the world because\nits real causes were hidden. Relations were strained between Germany\nand the United States because of the intense exasperation of a tariff\nconflict and the ambiguous attitude of the former power towards the\nMonroe Doctrine, and they were strained between the United States and\nJapan because of the perennial citizenship question. But in both cases\nthese were standing causes of offence. The real deciding cause, it is\nnow known, was the perfecting of the Pforzheim engine by Germany and the\nconsequent possibility of a rapid and entirely practicable airship.\nAt that time Germany was by far the most efficient power in the world,\nbetter organised for swift and secret action, better equipped with the\nresources of modern science, and with her official and administrative\nclasses at a higher level of education and training. These things she\nknew, and she exaggerated that knowledge to the pitch of contempt for\nthe secret counsels of her neighbours. It may be that with the habit of\nself-confidence her spying upon them had grown less thorough. Moreover,\nshe had a tradition of unsentimental and unscrupulous action that\nvitiated her international outlook profoundly. With the coming of these\nnew weapons her collective intelligence thrilled with the sense that now\nher moment had come. Once again in the history of progress it seemed she\nheld the decisive weapon. Now she might strike and conquer--before the\nothers had anything but experiments in the air.\n\nParticularly she must strike America, swiftly, because there, if\nanywhere, lay the chance of an aerial rival. It was known that America\npossessed a flying-machine of considerable practical value, developed\nout of the Wright model; but it was not supposed that the Washington War\nOffice had made any wholesale attempts to create an aerial navy. It was\nnecessary to strike before they could do so. France had a fleet of\nslow navigables, several dating from 1908, that could make no\npossible headway against the new type. They had been built solely for\nreconnoitring purposes on the eastern frontier, they were mostly\ntoo small to carry more than a couple of dozen men without arms or\nprovisions, and not one could do forty miles an hour. Great Britain,\nit seemed, in an access of meanness, temporised and wrangled with the\nimperial spirited Butteridge and his extraordinary invention. That also\nwas not in play--and could not be for some months at the earliest.\nFrom Asia there, came no sign. The Germans explained this by saying the\nyellow peoples were without invention. No other competitor was worth\nconsidering. \"Now or never,\" said the Germans--\"now or never we may\nseize the air--as once the British seized the seas! While all the other\npowers are still experimenting.\"\n\nSwift and systematic and secret were their preparations, and their plan\nmost excellent. So far as their knowledge went, America was the only\ndangerous possibility; America, which was also now the leading\ntrade rival of Germany and one of the chief barriers to her Imperial\nexpansion. So at once they would strike at America. They would fling a\ngreat force across the Atlantic heavens and bear America down unwarned\nand unprepared.\n\nAltogether it was a well-imagined and most hopeful and spirited\nenterprise, having regard to the information in the possession of the\nGerman government. The chances of it being a successful surprise were\nvery great. The airship and the flying-machine were very different\nthings from ironclads, which take a couple of years to build. Given\nhands, given plant, they could be made innumerably in a few weeks.\nOnce the needful parks and foundries were organised, air-ships and\nDrachenflieger could be poured into the sky. Indeed, when the time\ncame, they did pour into the sky like, as a bitter French writer put it,\nflies roused from filth.\n\nThe attack upon America was to be the first move in this tremendous\ngame. But no sooner had it started than instantly the aeronautic parks\nwere to proceed to put together and inflate the second fleet which was\nto dominate Europe and manoeuvre significantly over London, Paris, Rome,\nSt. Petersburg, or wherever else its moral effect was required. A World\nSurprise it was to be--no less a World Conquest; and it is wonderful how\nnear the calmly adventurous minds that planned it came to succeeding in\ntheir colossal design.\n\nVon Sternberg was the Moltke of this War in the Air, but it was the\ncurious hard romanticism of Prince Karl Albert that won over the\nhesitating Emperor to the scheme. Prince Karl Albert was indeed the\ncentral figure of the world drama. He was the darling of the Imperialist\nspirit in German, and the ideal of the new aristocratic feeling--the\nnew Chivalry, as it was called--that followed the overthrow of\nSocialism through its internal divisions and lack of discipline, and\nthe concentration of wealth in the hands of a few great families. He was\ncompared by obsequious flatterers to the Black Prince, to Alcibiades, to\nthe young Caesar. To many he seemed Nietzsche\'s Overman revealed. He was\nbig and blond and virile, and splendidly non-moral. The first great feat\nthat startled Europe, and almost brought about a new Trojan war, was\nhis abduction of the Princess Helena of Norway and his blank refusal to\nmarry her. Then followed his marriage with Gretchen Krass, a Swiss girl\nof peerless beauty. Then came the gallant rescue, which almost cost him\nhis life, of three drowning sailors whose boat had upset in the sea near\nHeligoland. For that and his victory over the American yacht Defender,\nC.C.I., the Emperor forgave him and placed him in control of the new\naeronautic arm of the German forces. This he developed with marvellous\nenergy and ability, being resolved, as he said, to give to Germany land\nand sea and sky. The national passion for aggression found in him its\nsupreme exponent, and achieved through him its realisation in this\nastounding war. But his fascination was more than national; all over the\nworld his ruthless strength dominated minds as the Napoleonic legend had\ndominated minds. Englishmen turned in disgust from the slow, complex,\ncivilised methods of their national politics to this uncompromising,\nforceful figure. Frenchmen believed in him. Poems were written to him in\nAmerican.\n\nHe made the war.\n\nQuite equally with the rest of the world, the general German population\nwas taken by surprise by the swift vigour of the Imperial government.\nA considerable literature of military forecasts, beginning as early as\n1906 with Rudolf Martin, the author not merely of a brilliant book of\nanticipations, but of a proverb, \"The future of Germany lies in the\nair,\" had, however, partially prepared the German imagination for some\nsuch enterprise.\n\n2\n\nOf all these world-forces and gigantic designs Bert Smallways knew\nnothing until he found himself in the very focus of it all and gaped\ndown amazed on the spectacle of that giant herd of air-ships. Each one\nseemed as long as the Strand, and as big about as Trafalgar Square. Some\nmust have been a third of a mile in length. He had never before seen\nanything so vast and disciplined as this tremendous park. For the first\ntime in his life he really had an intimation of the extraordinary and\nquite important things of which a contemporary may go in ignorance. He\nhad always clung to the illusion that Germans were fat, absurd men, who\nsmoked china pipes, and were addicted to knowledge and horseflesh and\nsauerkraut and indigestible things generally.\n\nHis bird\'s-eye view was quite transitory. He ducked at the first shot;\nand directly his balloon began to drop, his mind ran confusedly upon how\nhe might explain himself, and whether he should pretend to be Butteridge\nor not. \"O Lord!\" he groaned, in an agony of indecision. Then his eye\ncaught his sandals, and he felt a spasm of self-disgust. \"They\'ll think\nI\'m a bloomin\' idiot,\" he said, and then it was he rose up desperately\nand threw over the sand-bag and provoked the second and third shots.\n\nIt flashed into his head, as he cowered in the bottom of the car, that\nhe might avoid all sorts of disagreeable and complicated explanations by\npretending to be mad.\n\nThat was his last idea before the airships seemed to rush up about him\nas if to look at him, and his car hit the ground and bounded and pitched\nhim out on his head....\n\nHe awoke to find himself famous, and to hear a voice crying,\n\"Booteraidge! Ja! Ja! Herr Booteraidge! Selbst!\"\n\nHe was lying on a little patch of grass beside one of the main avenues\nof the aeronautic park. The airships receded down a great vista, an\nimmense perspective, and the blunt prow of each was adorned with a black\neagle of a hundred feet or so spread. Down the other side of the avenue\nran a series of gas generators, and big hose-pipes trailed everywhere\nacross the intervening space. Close at hand was his now nearly deflated\nballoon and the car on its side looking minutely small, a mere broken\ntoy, a shrivelled bubble, in contrast with the gigantic bulk of the\nnearer airship. This he saw almost end-on, rising like a cliff and\nsloping forward towards its fellow on the other side so as to overshadow\nthe alley between them. There was a crowd of excited people about him,\nbig men mostly in tight uniforms. Everybody was talking, and several\nwere shouting, in German; he knew that because they splashed and\naspirated sounds like startled kittens.\n\nOnly one phrase, repeated again and again could he recognize--the name\nof \"Herr Booteraidge.\"\n\n\"Gollys!\" said Bert. \"They\'ve spotted it.\"\n\n\"Besser,\" said some one, and some rapid German followed.\n\nHe perceived that close at hand was a field telephone, and that a tall\nofficer in blue was talking thereat about him. Another stood close\nbeside him with the portfolio of drawings and photographs in his hand.\nThey looked round at him.\n\n\"Do you spik Cherman, Herr Booteraidge?\"\n\nBert decided that he had better be dazed. He did his best to seem\nthoroughly dazed. \"Where AM I?\" he asked.\n\nVolubility prevailed. \"Der Prinz,\" was mentioned. A bugle sounded far\naway, and its call was taken up by one nearer, and then by one close at\nhand. This seemed to increase the excitement greatly. A mono-rail car\nbumbled past. The telephone bell rang passionately, and the tall officer\nseemed to engage in a heated altercation. Then he approached the group\nabout Bert, calling out something about \"mitbringen.\"\n\nAn earnest-faced, emaciated man with a white moustache appealed to Bert.\n\"Herr Booteraidge, sir, we are chust to start!\"\n\n\"Where am I?\" Bert repeated.\n\nSome one shook him by the other shoulder. \"Are you Herr Booteraidge?\" he\nasked.\n\n\"Herr Booteraidge, we are chust to start!\" repeated the white moustache,\nand then helplessly, \"What is de goot? What can we do?\"\n\nThe officer from the telephone repeated his sentence about \"Der Prinz\"\nand \"mitbringen.\" The man with the moustache stared for a moment,\ngrasped an idea and became violently energetic, stood up and bawled\ndirections at unseen people. Questions were asked, and the doctor at\nBert\'s side answered, \"Ja! Ja!\" several times, also something about\n\"Kopf.\" With a certain urgency he got Bert rather unwillingly to his\nfeet. Two huge soldiers in grey advanced upon Bert and seized hold of\nhim. \"\'Ullo!\" said Bert, startled. \"What\'s up?\"\n\n\"It is all right,\" the doctor explained; \"they are to carry you.\"\n\n\"Where?\" asked Bert, unanswered.\n\n\"Put your arms roundt their--hals--round them!\"\n\n\"Yes! but where?\"\n\n\"Hold tight!\"\n\nBefore Bert could decide to say anything more he was whisked up by the\ntwo soldiers. They joined hands to seat him, and his arms were put about\ntheir necks. \"Vorwarts!\" Some one ran before him with the portfolio, and\nhe was borne rapidly along the broad avenue between the gas generators\nand the airships, rapidly and on the whole smoothly except that once or\ntwice his bearers stumbled over hose-pipes and nearly let him down.\n\nHe was wearing Mr. Butteridge\'s Alpine cap, and his little shoulders\nwere in Mr. Butteridge\'s fur-lined overcoat, and he had responded to Mr.\nButteridge\'s name. The sandals dangled helplessly. Gaw! Everybody seemed\nin a devil of a hurry. Why? He was carried joggling and gaping through\nthe twilight, marvelling beyond measure.\n\nThe systematic arrangement of wide convenient spaces, the quantities\nof business-like soldiers everywhere, the occasional neat piles of\nmaterial, the ubiquitous mono-rail lines, and the towering ship-like\nhulls about him, reminded him a little of impressions he had got as\na boy on a visit to Woolwich Dockyard. The whole camp reflected the\ncolossal power of modern science that had created it. A peculiar\nstrangeness was produced by the lowness of the electric light, which\nlay upon the ground, casting all shadows upwards and making a grotesque\nshadow figure of himself and his bearers on the airship sides, fusing\nall three of them into a monstrous animal with attenuated legs and an\nimmense fan-like humped body. The lights were on the ground because\nas far as possible all poles and standards had been dispensed with to\nprevent complications when the airships rose.\n\nIt was deep twilight now, a tranquil blue-skyed evening; everything rose\nout from the splashes of light upon the ground into dim translucent\ntall masses; within the cavities of the airships small inspecting\nlamps glowed like cloud-veiled stars, and made them seem marvellously\nunsubstantial. Each airship had its name in black letters on white on\neither flank, and forward the Imperial eagle sprawled, an overwhelming\nbird in the dimness.\n\nBugles sounded, mono-rail cars of quiet soldiers slithered burbling\nby. The cabins under the heads of the airships were being lit up; doors\nopened in them, and revealed padded passages.\n\nNow and then a voice gave directions to workers indistinctly seen.\n\nThere was a matter of sentinels, gangways and a long narrow passage, a\nscramble over a disorder of baggage, and then Bert found himself lowered\nto the ground and standing in the doorway of a spacious cabin--it was\nperhaps ten feet square and eight high, furnished with crimson padding\nand aluminium. A tall, bird-like young man with a small head, a\nlong nose, and very pale hair, with his hands full of things like\nshaving-strops, boot-trees, hair-brushes, and toilet tidies, was saying\nthings about Gott and thunder and Dummer Booteraidge as Bert entered. He\nwas apparently an evicted occupant. Then he vanished, and Bert was lying\nback on a couch in the corner with a pillow under his head and the door\nof the cabin shut upon him. He was alone. Everybody had hurried out\nagain astonishingly.\n\n\"Gollys!\" said Bert. \"What next?\"\n\nHe stared about him at the room.\n\n\"Butteridge! Shall I try to keep it up, or shan\'t I?\"\n\nThe room he was in puzzled him. \"\'Tisn\'t a prison and \'tisn\'t a norfis?\"\nThen the old trouble came uppermost. \"I wish to \'eaven I \'adn\'t these\nsilly sandals on,\" he cried querulously to the universe. \"They give the\nwhole blessed show away.\"\n\n3\n\nHis door was flung open, and a compact young man in uniform appeared,\ncarrying Mr. Butteridge\'s portfolio, rucksac, and shaving-glass.\n\n\"I say!\" he said in faultless English as he entered. He had a beaming\nface, and a sort of pinkish blond hair. \"Fancy you being Butteridge.\" He\nslapped Bert\'s meagre luggage down.\n\n\"We\'d have started,\" he said, \"in another half-hour! You didn\'t give\nyourself much time!\"\n\nHe surveyed Bert curiously. His gaze rested for a fraction of a moment\non the sandals. \"You ought to have come on your flying-machine, Mr.\nButteridge.\"\n\nHe didn\'t wait for an answer. \"The Prince says I\'ve got to look after\nyou. Naturally he can\'t see you now, but he thinks your coming\'s\nprovidential. Last grace of Heaven. Like a sign. Hullo!\"\n\nHe stood still and listened.\n\nOutside there was a going to and fro of feet, a sound of distant bugles\nsuddenly taken up and echoed close at hand, men called out in loud tones\nshort, sharp, seemingly vital things, and were answered distantly. A\nbell jangled, and feet went down the corridor. Then came a stillness\nmore distracting than sound, and then a great gurgling and rushing and\nsplashing of water. The young man\'s eyebrows lifted. He hesitated, and\ndashed out of the room. Presently came a stupendous bang to vary the\nnoises without, then a distant cheering. The young man re-appeared.\n\n\"They\'re running the water out of the ballonette already.\"\n\n\"What water?\" asked Bert.\n\n\"The water that anchored us. Artful dodge. Eh?\"\n\nBert tried to take it in.\n\n\"Of course!\" said the compact young man. \"You don\'t understand.\"\n\nA gentle quivering crept upon Bert\'s senses. \"That\'s the engine,\" said\nthe compact young man approvingly. \"Now we shan\'t be long.\"\n\nAnother long listening interval.\n\nThe cabin swayed. \"By Jove! we\'re starting already;\" he cried. \"We\'re\nstarting!\"\n\n\"Starting!\" cried Bert, sitting up. \"Where?\"\n\nBut the young man was out of the room again. There were noises of German\nin the passage, and other nerve-shaking sounds.\n\nThe swaying increased. The young man reappeared. \"We\'re off, right\nenough!\"\n\n\"I say!\" said Bert, \"where are we starting? I wish you\'d explain. What\'s\nthis place? I don\'t understand.\"\n\n\"What!\" cried the young man, \"you don\'t understand?\"\n\n\"No. I\'m all dazed-like from that crack on the nob I got. Where ARE we?\nWHERE are we starting?\"\n\n\"Don\'t you know where you are--what this is?\"\n\n\"Not a bit of it! What\'s all the swaying and the row?\"\n\n\"What a lark!\" cried the young man. \"I say! What a thundering lark!\nDon\'t you know? We\'re off to America, and you haven\'t realised. You\'ve\njust caught us by a neck. You\'re on the blessed old flagship with the\nPrince. You won\'t miss anything. Whatever\'s on, you bet the Vaterland\nwill be there.\"\n\n\"Us!--off to America?\"\n\n\"Ra--ther!\"\n\n\"In an airship?\"\n\n\"What do YOU think?\"\n\n\"Me! going to America on an airship! After that balloon! \'Ere! I say--I\ndon\'t want to go! I want to walk about on my legs. Let me get out! I\ndidn\'t understand.\"\n\nHe made a dive for the door.\n\nThe young man arrested Bert with a gesture, took hold of a strap, lifted\nup a panel in the padded wall, and a window appeared. \"Look!\" he said.\nSide by side they looked out.\n\n\"Gaw!\" said Bert. \"We\'re going up!\"\n\n\"We are!\" said the young man, cheerfully; \"fast!\"\n\nThey were rising in the air smoothly and quietly, and moving slowly\nto the throb of the engine athwart the aeronautic park. Down below it\nstretched, dimly geometrical in the darkness, picked out at regular\nintervals by glow-worm spangles of light. One black gap in the long\nline of grey, round-backed airships marked the position from which the\nVaterland had come. Beside it a second monster now rose softly, released\nfrom its bonds and cables into the air. Then, taking a beautifully exact\ndistance, a third ascended, and then a fourth.\n\n\"Too late, Mr. Butteridge!\" the young man remarked. \"We\'re off! I\ndaresay it is a bit of a shock to you, but there you are! The Prince\nsaid you\'d have to come.\"\n\n\"Look \'ere,\" said Bert. \"I really am dazed. What\'s this thing? Where are\nwe going?\"\n\n\"This, Mr. Butteridge,\" said the young man, taking pains to be explicit,\n\"is an airship. It\'s the flagship of Prince Karl Albert. This is the\nGerman air-fleet, and it is going over to America, to give that spirited\npeople \'what for.\' The only thing we were at all uneasy about was your\ninvention. And here you are!\"\n\n\"But!--you a German?\" asked Bert.\n\n\"Lieutenant Kurt. Luft-lieutenant Kurt, at your service.\"\n\n\"But you speak English!\"\n\n\"Mother was English--went to school in England. Afterwards, Rhodes\nscholar. German none the less for that. Detailed for the present, Mr.\nButteridge, to look after you. You\'re shaken by your fall. It\'s all\nright, really. They\'re going to buy your machine and everything. You\nsit down, and take it quite calmly. You\'ll soon get the hang of the\nposition.\"\n\n4\n\nBert sat down on the locker, collecting his mind, and the young man\ntalked to him about the airship.\n\nHe was really a very tactful young man indeed, in a natural sort of way.\n\"Daresay all this is new to you,\" he said; \"not your sort of machine.\nThese cabins aren\'t half bad.\"\n\nHe got up and walked round the little apartment, showing its points.\n\n\"Here is the bed,\" he said, whipping down a couch from the wall and\nthrowing it back again with a click. \"Here are toilet things,\" and he\nopened a neatly arranged cupboard. \"Not much washing. No water we\'ve\ngot; no water at all except for drinking. No baths or anything until\nwe get to America and land. Rub over with loofah. One pint of hot for\nshaving. That\'s all. In the locker below you are rugs and blankets; you\nwill need them presently. They say it gets cold. I don\'t know. Never\nbeen up before. Except a little work with gliders--which is mostly\ngoing down. Three-quarters of the chaps in the fleet haven\'t. Here\'s a\nfolding-chair and table behind the door. Compact, eh?\"\n\nHe took the chair and balanced it on his little finger. \"Pretty light,\neh? Aluminium and magnesium alloy and a vacuum inside. All these\ncushions stuffed with hydrogen. Foxy! The whole ship\'s like that. And\nnot a man in the fleet, except the Prince and one or two others, over\neleven stone. Couldn\'t sweat the Prince, you know. We\'ll go all over the\nthing to-morrow. I\'m frightfully keen on it.\"\n\nHe beamed at Bert. \"You DO look young,\" he remarked. \"I always thought\nyou\'d be an old man with a beard--a sort of philosopher. I don\'t know\nwhy one should expect clever people always to be old. I do.\"\n\nBert parried that compliment a little awkwardly, and then the lieutenant\nwas struck with the riddle why Herr Butteridge had not come in his own\nflying machine.\n\n\"It\'s a long story,\" said Bert. \"Look here!\" he said abruptly, \"I wish\nyou\'d lend me a pair of slippers, or something. I\'m regular sick of\nthese sandals. They\'re rotten things. I\'ve been trying them for a\nfriend.\"\n\n\"Right O!\"\n\nThe ex-Rhodes scholar whisked out of the room and reappeared with a\nconsiderable choice of footwear--pumps, cloth bath-slippers, and a\npurple pair adorned with golden sun-flowers.\n\nBut these he repented of at the last moment.\n\n\"I don\'t even wear them myself,\" he said. \"Only brought \'em in the zeal\nof the moment.\" He laughed confidentially. \"Had \'em worked for me--in\nOxford. By a friend. Take \'em everywhere.\"\n\nSo Bert chose the pumps.\n\nThe lieutenant broke into a cheerful snigger. \"Here we are trying on\nslippers,\" he said, \"and the world going by like a panorama below.\nRather a lark, eh? Look!\"\n\nBert peeped with him out of the window, looking from the bright\npettiness of the red-and-silver cabin into a dark immensity. The land\nbelow, except for a lake, was black and featureless, and the other\nairships were hidden. \"See more outside,\" said the lieutenant. \"Let\'s\ngo! There\'s a sort of little gallery.\"\n\nHe led the way into the long passage, which was lit by one small\nelectric light, past some notices in German, to an open balcony and a\nlight ladder and gallery of metal lattice overhanging, empty space. Bert\nfollowed his leader down to the gallery slowly and cautiously. From\nit he was able to watch the wonderful spectacle of the first air-fleet\nflying through the night. They flew in a wedge-shaped formation, the\nVaterland highest and leading, the tail receding into the corners of\nthe sky. They flew in long, regular undulations, great dark fish-like\nshapes, showing hardly any light at all, the engines making a\nthrob-throb-throbbing sound that was very audible out on the gallery.\nThey were going at a level of five or six thousand feet, and rising\nsteadily. Below, the country lay silent, a clear darkness dotted and\nlined out with clusters of furnaces, and the lit streets of a group of\nbig towns. The world seemed to lie in a bowl; the overhanging bulk of\nthe airship above hid all but the lowest levels of the sky.\n\nThey watched the landscape for a space.\n\n\"Jolly it must be to invent things,\" said the lieutenant suddenly. \"How\ndid you come to think of your machine first?\"\n\n\"Worked it out,\" said Bert, after a pause. \"Jest ground away at it.\"\n\n\"Our people are frightfully keen on you. They thought the British had\ngot you. Weren\'t the British keen?\"\n\n\"In a way,\" said Bert. \"Still--it\'s a long story.\"\n\n\"I think it\'s an immense thing--to invent. I couldn\'t invent a thing to\nsave my life.\"\n\nThey both fell silent, watching the darkened world and following their\nthoughts until a bugle summoned them to a belated dinner. Bert was\nsuddenly alarmed. \"Don\'t you \'ave to dress and things?\" he said. \"I\'ve\nalways been too hard at Science and things to go into Society and all\nthat.\"\n\n\"No fear,\" said Kurt. \"Nobody\'s got more than the clothes they wear.\nWe\'re travelling light. You might perhaps take your overcoat off.\nThey\'ve an electric radiator each end of the room.\"\n\nAnd so presently Bert found himself sitting to eat in the presence of\nthe \"German Alexander\"--that great and puissant Prince, Prince Karl\nAlbert, the War Lord, the hero of two hemispheres. He was a handsome,\nblond man, with deep-set eyes, a snub nose, upturned moustache, and long\nwhite hands, a strange-looking man. He sat higher than the others, under\na black eagle with widespread wings and the German Imperial flags; he\nwas, as it were, enthroned, and it struck Bert greatly that as he ate he\ndid not look at people, but over their heads like one who sees visions.\nTwenty officers of various ranks stood about the table--and Bert. They\nall seemed extremely curious to see the famous Butteridge, and their\nastonishment at his appearance was ill-controlled. The Prince gave him\na dignified salutation, to which, by an inspiration, he bowed. Standing\nnext the Prince was a brown-faced, wrinkled man with silver spectacles\nand fluffy, dingy-grey side-whiskers, who regarded Bert with a peculiar\nand disconcerting attention. The company sat after ceremonies Bert could\nnot understand. At the other end of the table was the bird-faced officer\nBert had dispossessed, still looking hostile and whispering about Bert\nto his neighbour. Two soldiers waited. The dinner was a plain one--a\nsoup, some fresh mutton, and cheese--and there was very little talk.\n\nA curious solemnity indeed brooded over every one. Partly this was\nreaction after the intense toil and restrained excitement of starting;\npartly it was the overwhelming sense of strange new experiences, of\nportentous adventure. The Prince was lost in thought. He roused himself\nto drink to the Emperor in champagne, and the company cried \"Hoch!\" like\nmen repeating responses in church.\n\nNo smoking was permitted, but some of the officers went down to the\nlittle open gallery to chew tobacco. No lights whatever were safe\namidst that bundle of inflammable things. Bert suddenly fell yawning\nand shivering. He was overwhelmed by a sense of his own insignificance\namidst these great rushing monsters of the air. He felt life was too big\nfor him--too much for him altogether.\n\nHe said something to Kurt about his head, went up the steep ladder from\nthe swaying little gallery into the airship again, and so, as if it were\na refuge, to bed.\n\n5\n\nBert slept for a time, and then his sleep was broken by dreams. Mostly\nhe was fleeing from formless terrors down an interminable passage in\nan airship--a passage paved at first with ravenous trap-doors, and then\nwith openwork canvas of the most careless description.\n\n\"Gaw!\" said Bert, turning over after his seventh fall through infinite\nspace that night.\n\nHe sat up in the darkness and nursed his knees. The progress of the\nairship was not nearly so smooth as a balloon; he could feel a regular\nswaying up, up, up and then down, down, down, and the throbbing and\ntremulous quiver of the engines.\n\nHis mind began to teem with memories--more memories and more.\n\nThrough them, like a struggling swimmer in broken water, came the\nperplexing question, what am I to do to-morrow? To-morrow, Kurt had told\nhim, the Prince\'s secretary, the Graf Von Winterfeld, would come to him\nand discuss his flying-machine, and then he would see the Prince. He\nwould have to stick it out now that he was Butteridge, and sell\nhis invention. And then, if they found him out! He had a vision of\ninfuriated Butteridges.... Suppose after all he owned up? Pretended it\nwas their misunderstanding? He began to scheme devices for selling the\nsecret and circumventing Butteridge.\n\nWhat should he ask for the thing? Somehow twenty thousand pounds struck\nhim as about the sum indicated.\n\nHe fell into that despondency that lies in wait in the small hours. He\nhad got too big a job on--too big a job....\n\nMemories swamped his scheming.\n\n\"Where was I this time last night?\"\n\nHe recapitulated his evenings tediously and lengthily. Last night he\nhad been up above the clouds in Butteridge\'s balloon. He thought of the\nmoment when he dropped through them and saw the cold twilight sea close\nbelow. He still remembered that disagreeable incident with a nightmare\nvividness. And the night before he and Grubb had been looking for cheap\nlodgings at Littlestone in Kent. How remote that seemed now. It might be\nyears ago. For the first time he thought of his fellow Desert Dervish,\nleft with the two red-painted bicycles on Dymchurch sands. \"\'E won\'t\nmake much of a show of it, not without me. Any\'ow \'e did \'ave the\ntreasury--such as it was--in his pocket!\"... The night before that\nwas Bank Holiday night and they had sat discussing their minstrel\nenterprise, drawing up a programme and rehearsing steps. And the\nnight before was Whit Sunday. \"Lord!\" cried Bert, \"what a doing\nthat motor-bicycle give me!\" He recalled the empty flapping of the\neviscerated cushion, the feeling of impotence as the flames rose again.\nFrom among the confused memories of that tragic flare one little figure\nemerged very bright and poignantly sweet, Edna, crying back reluctantly\nfrom the departing motor-car, \"See you to-morrer, Bert?\"\n\nOther memories of Edna clustered round that impression. They led Bert\'s\nmind step by step to an agreeable state that found expression in \"I\'ll\nmarry \'ER if she don\'t look out.\" And then in a flash it followed in his\nmind that if he sold the Butteridge secret he could! Suppose after all\nhe did get twenty thousand pounds; such sums have been paid! With that\nhe could buy house and garden, buy new clothes beyond dreaming, buy a\nmotor, travel, have every delight of the civilised life as he knew it,\nfor himself and Edna. Of course, risks were involved. \"I\'ll \'ave old\nButteridge on my track, I expect!\"\n\nHe meditated upon that. He declined again to despondency. As yet he\nwas only in the beginning of the adventure. He had still to deliver the\ngoods and draw the cash. And before that--Just now he was by no means\non his way home. He was flying off to America to fight there. \"Not\nmuch fighting,\" he considered; \"all our own way.\" Still, if a shell did\nhappen to hit the Vaterland on the underside!...\n\n\"S\'pose I ought to make my will.\"\n\nHe lay back for some time composing wills--chiefly in favour of Edna. He\nhad settled now it was to be twenty thousand pounds. He left a number\nof minor legacies. The wills became more and more meandering and\nextravagant....\n\nHe woke from the eighth repetition of his nightmare fall through space.\n\"This flying gets on one\'s nerves,\" he said.\n\nHe could feel the airship diving down, down, down, then slowly swinging\nto up, up, up. Throb, throb, throb, throb, quivered the engine.\n\nHe got up presently and wrapped himself about with Mr. Butteridge\'s\novercoat and all the blankets, for the air was very keen. Then he peeped\nout of the window to see a grey dawn breaking over clouds, then turned\nup his light and bolted his door, sat down to the table, and produced\nhis chest-protector.\n\nHe smoothed the crumpled plans with his hand, and contemplated them.\nThen he referred to the other drawings in the portfolio. Twenty thousand\npounds. If he worked it right! It was worth trying, anyhow.\n\nPresently he opened the drawer in which Kurt had put paper and\nwriting-materials.\n\nBert Smallways was by no means a stupid person, and up to a certain\nlimit he had not been badly educated. His board school had taught him\nto draw up to certain limits, taught him to calculate and understand a\nspecification. If at that point his country had tired of its efforts,\nand handed him over unfinished to scramble for a living in an atmosphere\nof advertisments and individual enterprise, that was really not his\nfault. He was as his State had made him, and the reader must not imagine\nbecause he was a little Cockney cad, that he was absolutely incapable\nof grasping the idea of the Butteridge flying-machine. But he found it\nstiff and perplexing. His motor-bicycle and Grubb\'s experiments and the\n\"mechanical drawing\" he had done in standard seven all helped him out;\nand, moreover, the maker of these drawings, whoever he was, had been\nanxious to make his intentions plain. Bert copied sketches, he made\nnotes, he made a quite tolerable and intelligent copy of the essential\ndrawings and sketches of the others. Then he fell into a meditation upon\nthem.\n\nAt last he rose with a sigh, folded up the originals that had formerly\nbeen in his chest-protector and put them into the breast-pocket of his\njacket, and then very carefully deposited the copies he had made in the\nplace of the originals. He had no very clear plan in his mind in doing\nthis, except that he hated the idea of altogether parting with the\nsecret. For a long time he meditated profoundly--nodding. Then he turned\nout his light and went to bed again and schemed himself to sleep.\n\n6\n\nThe hochgeboren Graf von Winterfeld was also a light sleeper that night,\nbut then he was one of these people who sleep little and play chess\nproblems in their heads to while away the time--and that night he had a\nparticularly difficult problem to solve.\n\nHe came in upon Bert while he was still in bed in the glow of the\nsunlight reflected from the North Sea below, consuming the rolls and\ncoffee a soldier had brought him. He had a portfolio under his arm,\nand in the clear, early morning light his dingy grey hair and heavy,\nsilver-rimmed spectacles made him look almost benevolent. He spoke\nEnglish fluently, but with a strong German flavour. He was particularly\nbad with his \"b\'s,\" and his \"th\'s\" softened towards weak \"z\'ds.\" He\ncalled Bert explosively, \"Pooterage.\" He began with some indistinct\ncivilities, bowed, took a folding-table and chair from behind the door,\nput the former between himself and Bert, sat down on the latter, coughed\ndrily, and opened his portfolio. Then he put his elbows on the table,\npinched his lower lip with his two fore-fingers, and regarded Bert\ndisconcertingly with magnified eyes. \"You came to us, Herr Pooterage,\nagainst your will,\" he said at last.\n\n\"\'Ow d\'you make that out?\" asked Bert, after a pause of astonishment.\n\n\"I chuge by ze maps in your car. They were all English. And your\nprovisions. They were all picnic. Also your cords were entangled. You\nhaf\' been tugging--but no good. You could not manage ze balloon, and\nanuzzer power than yours prought you to us. Is it not so?\"\n\nBert thought.\n\n\"Also--where is ze laty?\"\n\n\"\'Ere!--what lady?\"\n\n\"You started with a laty. That is evident. You shtarted for an afternoon\nexcursion--a picnic. A man of your temperament--he would take a laty.\nShe was not wiz you in your balloon when you came down at Dornhof. No!\nOnly her chacket! It is your affair. Still, I am curious.\"\n\nBert reflected. \"\'Ow d\'you know that?\"\n\n\"I chuge by ze nature of your farious provisions. I cannot account, Mr.\nPooterage, for ze laty, what you haf done with her. Nor can I tell why\nyou should wear nature-sandals, nor why you should wear such cheap plue\nclothes. These are outside my instructions. Trifles, perhaps. Officially\nthey are to be ignored. Laties come and go--I am a man of ze worldt. I\nhaf known wise men wear sandals and efen practice vegetarian habits.\nI haf known men--or at any rate, I haf known chemists--who did not\nschmoke. You haf, no doubt, put ze laty down somewhere. Well. Let us get\nto--business. A higher power\"--his voice changed its emotional quality,\nhis magnified eyes seemed to dilate--\"has prought you and your secret\nstraight to us. So!\"--he bowed his head--\"so pe it. It is ze Destiny of\nChermany and my Prince. I can undershtandt you always carry zat secret.\nYou are afraidt of roppers and spies. So it comes wiz you--to us. Mr.\nPooterage, Chermany will puy it.\"\n\n\"Will she?\"\n\n\"She will,\" said the secretary, looking hard at Bert\'s abandoned sandals\nin the corner of the locker. He roused himself, consulted a paper of\nnotes for a moment, and Bert eyed his brown and wrinkled face with\nexpectation and terror. \"Chermany, I am instructed to say,\" said the\nsecretary, with his eyes on the table and his notes spread out, \"has\nalways been willing to puy your secret. We haf indeed peen eager to\nacquire it fery eager; and it was only ze fear that you might be, on\npatriotic groundts, acting in collusion with your Pritish War Office zat\nhas made us discreet in offering for your marvellous invention through\nintermediaries. We haf no hesitation whatefer now, I am instructed, in\nagreeing to your proposal of a hundert tousand poundts.\"\n\n\"Crikey!\" said Bert, overwhelmed.\n\n\"I peg your pardon?\"\n\n\"Jest a twinge,\" said Bert, raising his hand to his bandaged head.\n\n\"Ah! Also I am instructed to say that as for that noble, unrightly\naccused laty you haf championed so brafely against Pritish hypocrisy and\ncoldness, all ze chivalry of Chermany is on her site.\"\n\n\"Lady?\" said Bert faintly, and then recalled the great Butteridge love\nstory. Had the old chap also read the letters? He must think him a\nscorcher if he had. \"Oh! that\'s aw-right,\" he said, \"about \'er. I \'adn\'t\nany doubts about that. I--\"\n\nHe stopped. The secretary certainly had a most appalling stare. It\nseemed ages before he looked down again. \"Well, ze laty as you please.\nShe is your affair. I haf performt my instructions. And ze title of\nParon, zat also can pe done. It can all pe done, Herr Pooterage.\"\n\nHe drummed on the table for a second or so, and resumed. \"I haf to tell\nyou, sir, zat you come to us at a crisis in--Welt-Politik. There can be\nno harm now for me to put our plans before you. Pefore you leafe this\nship again they will be manifest to all ze worldt. War is perhaps\nalready declared. We go--to America. Our fleet will descend out of ze\nair upon ze United States--it is a country quite unprepared for war\neferywhere--eferywhere. Zey have always relied on ze Atlantic. And their\nnavy. We have selected a certain point--it is at present ze secret\nof our commanders--which we shall seize, and zen we shall establish\na depot--a sort of inland Gibraltar. It will be--what will it be?--an\neagle\'s nest. Zere our airships will gazzer and repair, and thence\nthey will fly to and fro ofer ze United States, terrorising cities,\ndominating Washington, levying what is necessary, until ze terms we\ndictate are accepted. You follow me?\"\n\n\"Go on!\" said Bert.\n\n\"We could haf done all zis wiz such Luftschiffe and Drachenflieger as we\npossess, but ze accession of your machine renders our project complete.\nIt not only gifs us a better Drachenflieger, but it remofes our last\nuneasiness as to Great Pritain. Wizout you, sir, Great Pritain, ze land\nyou lofed so well and zat has requited you so ill, zat land of Pharisees\nand reptiles, can do nozzing!--nozzing! You see, I am perfectly frank\nwiz you. Well, I am instructed that Chermany recognises all this. We\nwant you to place yourself at our disposal. We want you to become our\nChief Head Flight Engineer. We want you to manufacture, we want to equip\na swarm of hornets under your direction. We want you to direct this\nforce. And it is at our depot in America we want you. So we offer you\nsimply, and without haggling, ze full terms you demanded weeks ago--one\nhundert tousand poundts in cash, a salary of three tousand poundts a\nyear, a pension of one tousand poundts a year, and ze title of Paron as\nyou desired. These are my instructions.\"\n\nHe resumed his scrutiny of Bert\'s face.\n\n\"That\'s all right, of course,\" said Bert, a little short of breath, but\notherwise resolute and calm; and it seemed to him that now was the time\nto bring his nocturnal scheming to the issue.\n\nThe secretary contemplated Bert\'s collar with sustained attention. Only\nfor one moment did his gaze move to the sandals and back.\n\n\"Jes\' lemme think a bit,\" said Bert, finding the stare debilitating.\n\"Look \'ere!\" he said at last, with an air of great explicitness, \"I GOT\nthe secret.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"But I don\'t want the name of Butteridge to appear--see? I been thinking\nthat over.\"\n\n\"A little delicacy?\"\n\n\"Exactly. You buy the secret--leastways, I give it you--from\nBearer--see?\"\n\nHis voice failed him a little, and the stare continued. \"I want to do\nthe thing Enonymously. See?\"\n\nStill staring. Bert drifted on like a swimmer caught by a current. \"Fact\nis, I\'m going to edop\' the name of Smallways. I don\'t want no title of\nBaron; I\'ve altered my mind. And I want the money quiet-like. I want the\nhundred thousand pounds paid into benks--thirty thousand into the London\nand County Benk Branch at Bun Hill in Kent directly I \'and over the\nplans; twenty thousand into the Benk of England; \'arf the rest into a\ngood French bank, the other \'arf the German National Bank, see? I want\nit put there, right away. I don\'t want it put in the name of Butteridge.\nI want it put in the name of Albert Peter Smallways; that\'s the name I\'m\ngoing to edop\'. That\'s condition one.\"\n\n\"Go on!\" said the secretary.\n\n\"The nex condition,\" said Bert, \"is that you don\'t make any inquiries\nas to title. I mean what English gentlemen do when they sell or let you\nland. You don\'t arst \'ow I got it. See? \'Ere I am--I deliver you the\ngoods--that\'s all right. Some people \'ave the cheek to say this isn\'t my\ninvention, see? It is, you know--THAT\'S all right; but I don\'t want that\ngone into. I want a fair and square agreement saying that\'s all right.\nSee?\"\n\nHis \"See?\" faded into a profound silence.\n\nThe secretary sighed at last, leant back in his chair and produced a\ntooth-pick, and used it, to assist his meditation on Bert\'s case. \"What\nwas that name?\" he asked at last, putting away the tooth-pick; \"I must\nwrite it down.\"\n\n\"Albert Peter Smallways,\" said Bert, in a mild tone.\n\nThe secretary wrote it down, after a little difficulty about the\nspelling because of the different names of the letters of the alphabet\nin the two languages.\n\n\"And now, Mr. Schmallvays,\" he said at last, leaning back and resuming\nthe stare, \"tell me: how did you ket hold of Mister Pooterage\'s\nballoon?\"\n\n7\n\nWhen at last the Graf von Winterfold left Bert Smallways, he left him in\nan extremely deflated condition, with all his little story told.\n\nHe had, as people say, made a clean breast of it. He had been pursued\ninto details. He had had to explain the blue suit, the sandals, the\nDesert Dervishes--everything. For a time scientific zeal consumed the\nsecretary, and the question of the plans remained in suspense. He even\nwent into speculation about the previous occupants of the balloon. \"I\nsuppose,\" he said, \"the laty WAS the laty. Bot that is not our affair.\n\n\"It is fery curious and amusing, yes: but I am afraid the Prince may be\nannoyt. He acted wiz his usual decision--always he acts wiz wonterful\ndecision. Like Napoleon. Directly he was tolt of your descent into the\ncamp at Dornhof, he said, \'Pring him!--pring him! It is my schtar!\' His\nschtar of Destiny! You see? He will be dthwarted. He directed you to\ncome as Herr Pooterage, and you haf not done so. You haf triet, of\ncourse; but it has peen a poor try. His chugments of men are fery just\nand right, and it is better for men to act up to them--gompletely.\nEspecially now. Particularly now.\"\n\nHe resumed that attitude of his, with his underlip pinched between his\nforefingers. He spoke almost confidentially. \"It will be awkward. I\ntriet to suggest some doubt, but I was over-ruled. The Prince does\nnot listen. He is impatient in the high air. Perhaps he will think his\nschtar has been making a fool of him. Perhaps he will think _I_ haf been\nmaking a fool of him.\"\n\nHe wrinkled his forehead, and drew in the corners of his mouth.\n\n\"I got the plans,\" said Bert.\n\n\"Yes. There is that! Yes. But you see the Prince was interested in\nHerr Pooterage because of his romantic seit. Herr Pooterage was so much\nmore--ah!--in the picture. I am afraid you are not equal to controlling\nthe flying machine department of our aerial park as he wished you to do.\nHe hadt promised himself that....\n\n\"And der was also the prestige--the worldt prestige of Pooterage with\nus.... Well, we must see what we can do.\" He held out his hand. \"Gif me\nthe plans.\"\n\nA terrible chill ran through the being of Mr. Smallways. To this day he\nis not clear in his mind whether he wept or no, but certainly there\nwas weeping in his voice. \"\'Ere, I say!\" he protested. \"Ain\'t I to\n\'ave--nothin\' for \'em?\"\n\nThe secretary regarded him with benevolent eyes. \"You do not deserve\nanyzing!\" he said.\n\n\"I might \'ave tore \'em up.\"\n\n\"Zey are not yours!\"\n\n\"They weren\'t Butteridge\'s!\"\n\n\"No need to pay anyzing.\"\n\nBert\'s being seemed to tighten towards desperate deeds. \"Gaw!\" he said,\nclutching his coat, \"AIN\'T there?\"\n\n\"Pe galm,\" said the secretary. \"Listen! You shall haf five hundert\npoundts. You shall haf it on my promise. I will do that for you, and\nthat is all I can do. Take it from me. Gif me the name of that bank.\nWrite it down. So! I tell you the Prince--is no choke. I do not think he\napproffed of your appearance last night. No! I can\'t answer for him. He\nwanted Pooterage, and you haf spoilt it. The Prince--I do not understand\nquite, he is in a strange state. It is the excitement of the starting\nand this great soaring in the air. I cannot account for what he does.\nBut if all goes well I will see to it--you shall haf five hundert\npoundts. Will that do? Then gif me the plans.\"\n\n\"Old beggar!\" said Bert, as the door clicked. \"Gaw!--what an ole\nbeggar!--SHARP!\"\n\nHe sat down in the folding-chair, and whistled noiselessly for a time.\n\n\"Nice \'old swindle for \'im if I tore \'em up! I could \'ave.\"\n\nHe rubbed the bridge of his nose thoughtfully. \"I gave the whole blessed\nshow away. If I\'d j\'es\' kep quiet about being Enonymous.... Gaw!... Too\nsoon, Bert, my boy--too soon and too rushy. I\'d like to kick my silly\nself.\n\n\"I couldn\'t \'ave kep\' it up.\n\n\"After all, it ain\'t so very bad,\" he said.\n\n\"After all, five \'undred pounds.... It isn\'t MY secret, anyhow. It\'s\njes\' a pickup on the road. Five \'undred.\n\n\"Wonder what the fare is from America back home?\"\n\n8\n\nAnd later in the day an extremely shattered and disorganised Bert\nSmallways stood in the presence of the Prince Karl Albert.\n\nThe proceedings were in German. The Prince was in his own cabin, the end\nroom of the airship, a charming apartment furnished in wicker-work with\na long window across its entire breadth, looking forward. He was sitting\nat a folding-table of green baize, with Von Winterfeld and two officers\nsitting beside him, and littered before them was a number of American\nmaps and Mr. Butteridge\'s letters and his portfolio and a number of\nloose papers. Bert was not asked to sit down, and remained standing\nthroughout the interview. Von Winterfeld told his story, and every\nnow and then the words Ballon and Pooterage struck on Bert\'s ears. The\nPrince\'s face remained stern and ominous and the two officers watched it\ncautiously or glanced at Bert. There was something a little strange\nin their scrutiny of the Prince--a curiosity, an apprehension. Then\npresently he was struck by an idea, and they fell discussing the plans.\nThe Prince asked Bert abruptly in English. \"Did you ever see this thing\ngo op?\"\n\nBert jumped. \"Saw it from Bun \'Ill, your Royal Highness.\"\n\nVon Winterfeld made some explanation.\n\n\"How fast did it go?\"\n\n\"Couldn\'t say, your Royal Highness. The papers, leastways the Daily\nCourier, said eighty miles an hour.\"\n\nThey talked German over that for a time.\n\n\"Couldt it standt still? Op in the air? That is what I want to know.\"\n\n\"It could \'ovver, your Royal Highness, like a wasp,\" said Bert.\n\n\"Viel besser, nicht wahr?\" said the Prince to Von Winterfeld, and then\nwent on in German for a time.\n\nPresently they came to an end, and the two officers looked at Bert. One\nrang a bell, and the portfolio was handed to an attendant, who took it\naway.\n\nThen they reverted to the case of Bert, and it was evident the Prince\nwas inclined to be hard with him. Von Winterfeld protested. Apparently\ntheological considerations came in, for there were several mentions\nof \"Gott!\" Some conclusions emerged, and it was apparent that Von\nWinterfeld was instructed to convey them to Bert.\n\n\"Mr. Schmallvays, you haf obtained a footing in this airship,\" he said,\n\"by disgraceful and systematic lying.\"\n\n\"\'Ardly systematic,\" said Bert. \"I--\"\n\nThe Prince silenced him by a gesture.\n\n\"And it is within the power of his Highness to dispose of you as a spy.\"\n\n\"\'Ere!--I came to sell--\"\n\n\"Ssh!\" said one of the officers.\n\n\"However, in consideration of the happy chance that mate you the\ninstrument unter Gott of this Pooterage flying-machine reaching his\nHighness\'s hand, you haf been spared. Yes,--you were the pearer of\ngoot tidings. You will be allowed to remain on this ship until it is\nconvenient to dispose of you. Do you understandt?\"\n\n\"We will bring him,\" said the Prince, and added terribly with a terrible\nglare, \"als Ballast.\"\n\n\"You are to come with us,\" said Winterfeld, \"as pallast. Do you\nunderstandt?\"\n\nBert opened his mouth to ask about the five hundred pounds, and then a\nsaving gleam of wisdom silenced him. He met Von Winterfeld\'s eye, and it\nseemed to him the secretary nodded slightly.\n\n\"Go!\" said the Prince, with a sweep of the great arm and hand towards\nthe door. Bert went out like a leaf before a gale.\n\n9\n\nBut in between the time when the Graf von Winterfeld had talked to him\nand this alarming conference with the Prince, Bert had explored the\nVaterland from end to end. He had found it interesting in spite of grave\npreoccupations. Kurt, like the greater number of the men upon the\nGerman air-fleet, had known hardly anything of aeronautics before his\nappointment to the new flagship. But he was extremely keen upon this\nwonderful new weapon Germany had assumed so suddenly and dramatically.\nHe showed things to Bert with a boyish eagerness and appreciation. It\nwas as if he showed them over again to himself, like a child showing a\nnew toy. \"Let\'s go all over the ship,\" he said with zest. He pointed out\nparticularly the lightness of everything, the use of exhausted aluminium\ntubing, of springy cushions inflated with compressed hydrogen; the\npartitions were hydrogen bags covered with light imitation leather, the\nvery crockery was a light biscuit glazed in a vacuum, and weighed next\nto nothing. Where strength was needed there was the new Charlottenburg\nalloy, German steel as it was called, the toughest and most resistant\nmetal in the world.\n\nThere was no lack of space. Space did not matter, so long as load did\nnot grow. The habitable part of the ship was two hundred and fifty\nfeet long, and the rooms in two tiers; above these one could go up into\nremarkable little white-metal turrets with big windows and airtight\ndouble doors that enabled one to inspect the vast cavity of the\ngas-chambers. This inside view impressed Bert very much. He had never\nrealised before that an airship was not one simple continuous gas-bag\ncontaining nothing but gas. Now he saw far above him the backbone of the\napparatus and its big ribs, \"like the neural and haemal canals,\" said\nKurt, who had dabbled in biology.\n\n\"Rather!\" said Bert appreciatively, though he had not the ghost of an\nidea what these phrases meant.\n\nLittle electric lights could be switched on up there if anything went\nwrong in the night. There were even ladders across the space. \"But you\ncan\'t go into the gas,\" protested Bert. \"You can\'t breve it.\"\n\nThe lieutenant opened a cupboard door and displayed a diver\'s suit, only\nthat it was made of oiled silk, and both its compressed-air knapsack and\nits helmet were of an alloy of aluminium and some light metal. \"We can\ngo all over the inside netting and stick up bullet holes or leaks,\" he\nexplained. \"There\'s netting inside and out. The whole outer-case is rope\nladder, so to speak.\"\n\nAft of the habitable part of the airship was the magazine of explosives,\ncoming near the middle of its length. They were all bombs of various\ntypes mostly in glass--none of the German airships carried any guns at\nall except one small pom-pom (to use the old English nickname dating\nfrom the Boer war), which was forward in the gallery upon the shield at\nthe heart of the eagle.\n\nFrom the magazine amidships a covered canvas gallery with aluminium\ntreads on its floor and a hand-rope, ran back underneath the gas-chamber\nto the engine-room at the tail; but along this Bert did not go, and from\nfirst to last he never saw the engines. But he went up a ladder against\na gale of ventilation--a ladder that was encased in a kind of gas-tight\nfire escape--and ran right athwart the great forward air-chamber to the\nlittle look-out gallery with a telephone, that gallery that bore the\nlight pom-pom of German steel and its locker of shells. This gallery\nwas all of aluminium magnesium alloy, the tight front of the air-ship\nswelled cliff-like above and below, and the black eagle sprawled\noverwhelmingly gigantic, its extremities all hidden by the bulge of\nthe gas-bag. And far down, under the soaring eagles, was England, four\nthousand feet below perhaps, and looking very small and defenceless\nindeed in the morning sunlight.\n\nThe realisation that there was England gave Bert sudden and unexpected\nqualms of patriotic compunction. He was struck by a quite novel idea.\nAfter all, he might have torn up those plans and thrown them away. These\npeople could not have done so very much to him. And even if they did,\nought not an Englishman to die for his country? It was an idea that\nhad hitherto been rather smothered up by the cares of a competitive\ncivilisation. He became violently depressed. He ought, he perceived, to\nhave seen it in that light before. Why hadn\'t he seen it in that light\nbefore?\n\nIndeed, wasn\'t he a sort of traitor?... He wondered how the aerial fleet\nmust look from down there. Tremendous, no doubt, and dwarfing all the\nbuildings.\n\nHe was passing between Manchester and Liverpool, Kurt told him; a\ngleaming band across the prospect was the Ship Canal, and a weltering\nditch of shipping far away ahead, the Mersey estuary. Bert was a\nSoutherner; he had never been north of the Midland counties, and the\nmultitude of factories and chimneys--the latter for the most part\nobsolete and smokeless now, superseded by huge electric generating\nstations that consumed their own reek--old railway viaducts, mono-rail\nnet-works and goods yards, and the vast areas of dingy homes and narrow\nstreets, spreading aimlessly, struck him as though Camberwell and\nRotherhithe had run to seed. Here and there, as if caught in a net, were\nfields and agricultural fragments. It was a sprawl of undistinguished\npopulation. There were, no doubt, museums and town halls and even\ncathedrals of a sort to mark theoretical centres of municipal and\nreligious organisation in this confusion; but Bert could not see\nthem, they did not stand out at all in that wide disorderly vision\nof congested workers\' houses and places to work, and shops and meanly\nconceived chapels and churches. And across this landscape of an\nindustrial civilisation swept the shadows of the German airships like a\nhurrying shoal of fishes....\n\nKurt and he fell talking of aerial tactics, and presently went down to\nthe undergallery in order that Bert might see the Drachenflieger that\nthe airships of the right wing had picked up overnight and were towing\nbehind them; each airship towing three or four. They looked, like big\nbox-kites of an exaggerated form, soaring at the ends of invisible\ncords. They had long, square heads and flattened tails, with lateral\npropellers.\n\n\"Much skill is required for those!--much skill!\"\n\n\"Rather!\"\n\nPause.\n\n\"Your machine is different from that, Mr. Butteridge?\"\n\n\"Quite different,\" said Bert. \"More like an insect, and less like a\nbird. And it buzzes, and don\'t drive about so. What can those things\ndo?\"\n\nKurt was not very clear upon that himself, and was still explaining when\nBert was called to the conference we have recorded with the Prince.\n\nAnd after that was over, the last traces of Butteridge fell from Bert\nlike a garment, and he became Smallways to all on board. The soldiers\nceased to salute him, and the officers ceased to seem aware of his\nexistence, except Lieutenant Kurt. He was turned out of his nice cabin,\nand packed in with his belongings to share that of Lieutenant Kurt,\nwhose luck it was to be junior, and the bird-headed officer, still\nswearing slightly, and carrying strops and aluminium boot-trees and\nweightless hair-brushes and hand-mirrors and pomade in his hands,\nresumed possession. Bert was put in with Kurt because there was nowhere\nelse for him to lay his bandaged head in that close-packed vessel. He\nwas to mess, he was told, with the men.\n\nKurt came and stood with his legs wide apart and surveyed, him for a\nmoment as he sat despondent in his new quarters.\n\n\"What\'s your real name, then?\" said Kurt, who was only imperfectly\ninformed of the new state of affairs.\n\n\"Smallways.\"\n\n\"I thought you were a bit of a fraud--even when I thought you were\nButteridge. You\'re jolly lucky the Prince took it calmly. He\'s a pretty\ntidy blazer when he\'s roused. He wouldn\'t stick a moment at pitching a\nchap of your sort overboard if he thought fit. No!... They\'ve shoved you\non to me, but it\'s my cabin, you know.\"\n\n\"I won\'t forget,\" said Bert.\n\nKurt left him, and when he came to look about him the first thing he saw\npasted on the padded wall was a reproduction, of the great picture by\nSiegfried Schmalz of the War God, that terrible, trampling figure with\nthe viking helmet and the scarlet cloak, wading through destruction,\nsword in hand, which had so strong a resemblance to Karl Albert, the\nprince it was painted to please.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V. THE BATTLE OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC\n\n1\n\nThe Prince Karl Albert had made a profound impression upon Bert. He was\nquite the most terrifying person Bert had ever encountered. He filled\nthe Smallways soul with passionate dread and antipathy. For a long time\nBert sat alone in Kurt\'s cabin, doing nothing and not venturing even\nto open the door lest he should be by that much nearer that appalling\npresence.\n\nSo it came about that he was probably the last person on board to hear\nthe news that wireless telegraphy was bringing to the airship in throbs\nand fragments of a great naval battle in progress in mid-Atlantic.\n\nHe learnt it at last from Kurt.\n\nKurt came in with a general air of ignoring Bert, but muttering to\nhimself in English nevertheless. \"Stupendous!\" Bert heard him say.\n\"Here!\" he said, \"get off this locker.\" And he proceeded to rout out two\nbooks and a case of maps. He spread them on the folding-table, and stood\nregarding them. For a time his Germanic discipline struggled with his\nEnglish informality and his natural kindliness and talkativeness, and at\nlast lost.\n\n\"They\'re at it, Smallways,\" he said.\n\n\"At what, sir?\" said Bert, broken and respectful.\n\n\"Fighting! The American North Atlantic squadron and pretty nearly\nthe whole of our fleet. Our Eiserne Kreuz has had a gruelling and is\nsinking, and their Miles Standish--she\'s one of their biggest--has sunk\nwith all hands. Torpedoes, I suppose. She was a bigger ship than the\nKarl der Grosse, but five or six years older. Gods! I wish we could see\nit, Smallways; a square fight in blue water, guns or nothing, and all of\n\'em steaming ahead!\"\n\nHe spread his maps, he had to talk, and so he delivered a lecture on the\nnaval situation to Bert.\n\n\"Here it is,\" he said, \"latitude 30 degrees 50 minutes N. longitude 30\ndegrees 50 minutes W. It\'s a good day off us, anyhow, and they\'re all\ngoing south-west by south at full pelt as hard as they can go. We shan\'t\nsee a bit of it, worse luck! Not a sniff we shan\'t get!\"\n\n2\n\nThe naval situation in the North Atlantic at that time was a peculiar\none. The United States was by far the stronger of the two powers upon\nthe sea, but the bulk of the American fleet was still in the Pacific.\nIt was in the direction of Asia that war had been most feared, for the\nsituation between Asiatic and white had become unusually violent\nand dangerous, and the Japanese government had shown itself quite\nunprecedentedly difficult. The German attack therefore found half the\nAmerican strength at Manila, and what was called the Second Fleet strung\nout across the Pacific in wireless contact between the Asiatic station\nand San Francisco. The North Atlantic squadron was the sole American\nforce on her eastern shore, it was returning from a friendly visit\nto France and Spain, and was pumping oil-fuel from tenders in\nmid-Atlantic--for most of its ships were steamships--when the\ninternational situation became acute. It was made up of four battleships\nand five armoured cruisers ranking almost with battleships, not one of\nwhich was of a later date than 1913. The Americans had indeed grown so\naccustomed to the idea that Great Britain could be trusted to keep the\npeace of the Atlantic that a naval attack on the eastern seaboard\nfound them unprepared even in their imaginations. But long before the\ndeclaration of war--indeed, on Whit Monday--the whole German fleet of\neighteen battleships, with a flotilla of fuel tenders and converted\nliners containing stores to be used in support of the air-fleet, had\npassed through the straits of Dover and headed boldly for New York. Not\nonly did these German battleships outnumber the Americans two to one,\nbut they were more heavily armed and more modern in construction--seven\nof them having high explosive engines built of Charlottenburg steel, and\nall carrying Charlottenburg steel guns.\n\nThe fleets came into contact on Wednesday before any actual declaration\nof war. The Americans had strung out in the modern fashion at distances\nof thirty miles or so, and were steaming to keep themselves between the\nGermans and either the eastern states or Panama; because, vital as it\nwas to defend the seaboard cities and particularly New York, it was\nstill more vital to save the canal from any attack that might prevent\nthe return of the main fleet from the Pacific. No doubt, said Kurt, this\nwas now making records across that ocean, \"unless the Japanese have had\nthe same idea as the Germans.\" It was obviously beyond human possibility\nthat the American North Atlantic fleet could hope to meet and defeat\nthe German; but, on the other hand, with luck it might fight a delaying\naction and inflict such damage as to greatly weaken the attack upon\nthe coast defences. Its duty, indeed, was not victory but devotion,\nthe severest task in the world. Meanwhile the submarine defences of New\nYork, Panama, and the other more vital points could be put in some sort\nof order.\n\nThis was the naval situation, and until Wednesday in Whit week it was\nthe only situation the American people had realised. It was then they\nheard for the first time of the real scale of the Dornhof aeronautic\npark and the possibility of an attack coming upon them not only by\nsea, but by the air. But it is curious that so discredited were the\nnewspapers of that period that a large majority of New Yorkers, for\nexample, did not believe the most copious and circumstantial accounts of\nthe German air-fleet until it was actually in sight of New York.\n\nKurt\'s talk was half soliloquy. He stood with a map on Mercator\'s\nprojection before him, swaying to the swinging of the ship and talking\nof guns and tonnage, of ships and their build and powers and speed, of\nstrategic points, and bases of operation. A certain shyness that\nreduced him to the status of a listener at the officers\' table no longer\nsilenced him.\n\nBert stood by, saying very little, but watching Kurt\'s finger on the\nmap. \"They\'ve been saying things like this in the papers for a long\ntime,\" he remarked. \"Fancy it coming real!\"\n\nKurt had a detailed knowledge of the Miles Standish. \"She used to be\na crack ship for gunnery--held the record. I wonder if we beat her\nshooting, or how? I wish I was in it. I wonder which of our ships beat\nher. Maybe she got a shell in her engines. It\'s a running fight! I\nwonder what the Barbarossa is doing,\" he went on, \"She\'s my old ship.\nNot a first-rater, but good stuff. I bet she\'s got a shot or two home\nby now if old Schneider\'s up to form. Just think of it! There they\nare whacking away at each other, great guns going, shells exploding,\nmagazines bursting, ironwork flying about like straw in a gale, all\nwe\'ve been dreaming of for years! I suppose we shall fly right away to\nNew York--just as though it wasn\'t anything at all. I suppose we shall\nreckon we aren\'t wanted down there. It\'s no more than a covering fight\non our side. All those tenders and store-ships of ours are going on\nsouthwest by west to New York to make a floating depot for us. See?\" He\ndabbed his forefinger on the map. \"Here we are. Our train of stores goes\nthere, our battleships elbow the Americans out of our way there.\"\n\nWhen Bert went down to the men\'s mess-room to get his evening ration,\nhardly any one took notice of him except just to point him out for\nan instant. Every one was talking of the battle, suggesting,\ncontradicting--at times, until the petty officers hushed them, it rose\nto a great uproar. There was a new bulletin, but what it said he did not\ngather except that it concerned the Barbarossa. Some of the men stared\nat him, and he heard the name of \"Booteraidge\" several times; but no one\nmolested him, and there was no difficulty about his soup and bread when\nhis turn at the end of the queue came. He had feared there might be no\nration for him, and if so he did not know what he would have done.\n\nAfterwards he ventured out upon the little hanging gallery with the\nsolitary sentinel. The weather was still fine, but the wind was rising\nand the rolling swing of the airship increasing. He clutched the rail\ntightly and felt rather giddy. They were now out of sight of land,\nand over blue water rising and falling in great masses. A dingy old\nbrigantine under the British flag rose and plunged amid the broad blue\nwaves--the only ship in sight.\n\n3\n\nIn the evening it began to blow and the air-ship to roll like a porpoise\nas it swung through the air. Kurt said that several of the men were\nsea-sick, but the motion did not inconvenience Bert, whose luck it was\nto be of that mysterious gastric disposition which constitutes a good\nsailor. He slept well, but in the small hours the light awoke him, and\nhe found Kurt staggering about in search of something. He found it at\nlast in the locker, and held it in his hand unsteadily--a compass. Then\nhe compared his map.\n\n\"We\'ve changed our direction,\" he said, \"and come into the wind. I can\'t\nmake it out. We\'ve turned away from New York to the south. Almost as if\nwe were going to take a hand--\"\n\nHe continued talking to himself for some time.\n\nDay came, wet and windy. The window was bedewed externally, and they\ncould see nothing through it. It was also very cold, and Bert decided\nto keep rolled up in his blankets on the locker until the bugle summoned\nhim to his morning ration. That consumed, he went out on the little\ngallery; but he could see nothing but eddying clouds driving headlong\nby, and the dim outlines of the nearer airships. Only at rare intervals\ncould he get a glimpse of grey sea through the pouring cloud-drift.\n\nLater in the morning the Vaterland changed altitude, and soared up\nsuddenly in a high, clear sky, going, Kurt said, to a height of nearly\nthirteen thousand feet.\n\nBert was in his cabin, and chanced to see the dew vanish from the window\nand caught the gleam of sunlight outside. He looked out, and saw once\nmore that sunlit cloud floor he had seen first from the balloon, and the\nships of the German air-fleet rising one by one from the white, as fish\nmight rise and become visible from deep water. He stared for a moment\nand then ran out to the little gallery to see this wonder better. Below\nwas cloudland and storm, a great drift of tumbled weather going hard\naway to the north-east, and the air about him was clear and cold\nand serene save for the faintest chill breeze and a rare, drifting\nsnow-flake. Throb, throb, throb, throb, went the engines in the\nstillness. That huge herd of airships rising one after another had\nan effect of strange, portentous monsters breaking into an altogether\nunfamiliar world.\n\nEither there was no news of the naval battle that morning, or the Prince\nkept to himself whatever came until past midday. Then the bulletins came\nwith a rush, bulletins that made the lieutenant wild with excitement.\n\n\"Barbarossa disabled and sinking,\" he cried. \"Gott im Himmel! Der alte\nBarbarossa! Aber welch ein braver krieger!\"\n\nHe walked about the swinging cabin, and for a time he was wholly German.\n\nThen he became English again. \"Think of it, Smallways! The old ship we\nkept so clean and tidy! All smashed about, and the iron flying about\nin fragments, and the chaps one knew--Gott!--flying about too! Scalding\nwater squirting, fire, and the smash, smash of the guns! They smash\nwhen you\'re near! Like everything bursting to pieces! Wool won\'t stop\nit--nothing! And me up here--so near and so far! Der alte Barbarossa!\"\n\n\"Any other ships?\" asked Smallways, presently.\n\n\"Gott! Yes! We\'ve lost the Karl der Grosse, our best and biggest. Run\ndown in the night by a British liner that blundered into the fighting\nin trying to blunder out. They\'re fighting in a gale. The liner\'s\nafloat with her nose broken, sagging about! There never was such a\nbattle!--never before! Good ships and good men on both sides,--and a\nstorm and the night and the dawn and all in the open ocean full steam\nahead! No stabbing! No submarines! Guns and shooting! Half our ships we\ndon\'t hear of any more, because their masts are shot away. Latitude,\n30 degrees 40 minutes N.--longitude, 40 degrees 30 minutes W.--where\'s\nthat?\"\n\nHe routed out his map again, and stared at it with eyes that did not\nsee.\n\n\"Der alte Barbarossa! I can\'t get it out of my head--with shells in her\nengine-room, and the fires flying out of her furnaces, and the stokers\nand engineers scalded and dead. Men I\'ve messed with, Smallways--men\nI\'ve talked to close! And they\'ve had their day at last! And it wasn\'t\nall luck for them!\n\n\"Disabled and sinking! I suppose everybody can\'t have all the luck in a\nbattle. Poor old Schneider! I bet he gave \'em something back!\"\n\nSo it was the news of the battle came filtering through to them all that\nmorning. The Americans had lost a second ship, name unknown; the Hermann\nhad been damaged in covering the Barbarossa.... Kurt fretted like an\nimprisoned animal about the airship, now going up to the forward gallery\nunder the eagle, now down into the swinging gallery, now poring over his\nmaps. He infected Smallways with a sense of the immediacy of this battle\nthat was going on just over the curve of the earth. But when Bert went\ndown to the gallery the world was empty and still, a clear inky-blue\nsky above and a rippled veil of still, thin sunlit cirrus below, through\nwhich one saw a racing drift of rain-cloud, and never a glimpse of sea.\nThrob, throb, throb, throb, went the engines, and the long, undulating\nwedge of airships hurried after the flagship like a flight of swans\nafter their leader. Save for the quiver of the engines it was as\nnoiseless as a dream. And down there, somewhere in the wind and rain,\nguns roared, shells crashed home, and, after the old manner of warfare,\nmen toiled and died.\n\n4\n\nAs the afternoon wore on the lower weather abated, and the sea became\nintermittently visible again. The air-fleet dropped slowly to the middle\nair, and towards sunset they had a glimpse of the disabled Barbarossa\nfar away to the east. Smallways heard men hurrying along the passage,\nand was drawn out to the gallery, where he found nearly a dozen officers\ncollected and scrutinising the helpless ruins of the battleship through\nfield-glasses. Two other vessels stood by her, one an exhausted petrol\ntank, very high out of the water, and the other a converted liner. Kurt\nwas at the end of the gallery, a little apart from the others.\n\n\"Gott!\" he said at last, lowering his binocular, \"it is like seeing\nan old friend with his nose cut off--waiting to be finished. Der\nBarbarossa!\"\n\nWith a sudden impulse he handed his glass to Bert, who had peered\nbeneath his hands, ignored by every one, seeing the three ships merely\nas three brown-black lines upon the sea.\n\nNever had Bert seen the like of that magnified slightly hazy image\nbefore. It was not simply a battered ironclad that wallowed helpless,\nit was a mangled ironclad. It seemed wonderful she still floated. Her\npowerful engines had been her ruin. In the long chase of the night\nshe had got out of line with her consorts, and nipped in between the\nSusquehanna and the Kansas City. They discovered her proximity, dropped\nback until she was nearly broadside on to the former battleship, and\nsignalled up the Theodore Roosevelt and the little Monitor. As dawn\nbroke she had found herself hostess of a circle. The fight had not\nlasted five minutes before the appearance of the Hermann to the east,\nand immediately after of the Furst Bismarck in the west, forced the\nAmericans to leave her, but in that time they had smashed her iron\nto rags. They had vented the accumulated tensions of their hard day\'s\nretreat upon her. As Bert saw her, she seemed a mere metal-worker\'s\nfantasy of frozen metal writhings. He could not tell part from part of\nher, except by its position.\n\n\"Gott!\" murmured Kurt, taking the glasses Bert restored to him--\"Gott!\nDa waren Albrecht--der gute Albrecht und der alte Zimmermann--und von\nRosen!\"\n\nLong after the Barbarosa had been swallowed up in the twilight and\ndistance he remained on the gallery peering through his glasses, and\nwhen he came back to his cabin he was unusually silent and thoughtful.\n\n\"This is a rough game, Smallways,\" he said at last--\"this war is a rough\ngame. Somehow one sees it different after a thing like that. Many men\nthere were worked to make that Barbarossa, and there were men in it--one\ndoes not meet the like of them every day. Albrecht--there was a man\nnamed Albrecht--played the zither and improvised; I keep on wondering\nwhat has happened to him. He and I--we were very close friends, after\nthe German fashion.\"\n\nSmallways woke the next night to discover the cabin in darkness, a\ndraught blowing through it, and Kurt talking to himself in German. He\ncould see him dimly by the window, which he had unscrewed and opened,\npeering down. That cold, clear, attenuated light which is not so much\nlight as a going of darkness, which casts inky shadows and so often\nheralds the dawn in the high air, was on his face.\n\n\"What\'s the row?\" said Bert.\n\n\"Shut up!\" said the lieutenant. \"Can\'t you hear?\"\n\nInto the stillness came the repeated heavy thud of guns, one, two, a\npause, then three in quick succession.\n\n\"Gaw!\" said Bert--\"guns!\" and was instantly at the lieutenant\'s side.\nThe airship was still very high and the sea below was masked by a thin\nveil of clouds. The wind had fallen, and Bert, following Kurt\'s pointing\nfinger, saw dimly through the colourless veil first a red glow, then\na quick red flash, and then at a little distance from it another. They\nwere, it seemed for a while, silent flashes, and seconds after, when\none had ceased to expect them, came the belated thuds--thud, thud. Kurt\nspoke in German, very quickly.\n\nA bugle call rang through the airship.\n\nKurt sprang to his feet, saying something in an excited tone, still\nusing German, and went to the door.\n\n\"I say! What\'s up?\" cried Bert. \"What\'s that?\"\n\nThe lieutenant stopped for an instant in the doorway, dark against the\nlight passage. \"You stay where you are, Smallways. You keep there and do\nnothing. We\'re going into action,\" he explained, and vanished.\n\nBert\'s heart began to beat rapidly. He felt himself poised over the\nfighting vessels far below. In a moment, were they to drop like a hawk\nstriking a bird? \"Gaw!\" he whispered at last, in awestricken tones.\n\nThud!... thud! He discovered far away a second ruddy flare flashing guns\nback at the first. He perceived some difference on the Vaterland for\nwhich he could not account, and then he realised that the engines\nhad slowed to an almost inaudible beat. He stuck his head out of the\nwindow--it was a tight fit--and saw in the bleak air the other airships\nslowed down to a scarcely perceptible motion.\n\nA second bugle sounded, was taken up faintly from ship to ship. Out went\nthe lights; the fleet became dim, dark bulks against an intense blue sky\nthat still retained an occasional star. For a long time they hung, for\nan interminable time it seemed to him, and then began the sound of air\nbeing pumped into the balloonette, and slowly, slowly the Vaterland sank\ndown towards the clouds.\n\nHe craned his neck, but he could not see if the rest of the fleet was\nfollowing them; the overhang of the gas-chambers intervened. There\nwas something that stirred his imagination deeply in that stealthy,\nnoiseless descent. The obscurity deepened for a time, the last fading\nstar on the horizon vanished, and he felt the cold presence of cloud.\nThen suddenly the glow beneath assumed distinct outlines, became flames,\nand the Vaterland ceased to descend and hung observant, and it would\nseem unobserved, just beneath a drifting stratum of cloud, a thousand\nfeet, perhaps, over the battle below.\n\nIn the night the struggling naval battle and retreat had entered upon a\nnew phase. The Americans had drawn together the ends of the flying line\nskilfully and dexterously, until at last it was a column and well to the\nsouth of the lax sweeping pursuit of the Germans. Then in the darkness\nbefore the dawn they had come about and steamed northward in close order\nwith the idea of passing through the German battle-line and falling\nupon the flotilla that was making for New York in support of the German\nair-fleet. Much had altered since the first contact of the fleets. By\nthis time the American admiral, O\'Connor, was fully informed of the\nexistence of the airships, and he was no longer vitally concerned for\nPanama, since the submarine flotilla was reported arrived there from Key\nWest, and the Delaware and Abraham Lincoln, two powerful and entirely\nmodern ships, were already at Rio Grande, on the Pacific side of the\ncanal. His manoeuvre was, however, delayed by a boiler explosion on\nboard the Susquehanna, and dawn found this ship in sight of and indeed\nso close to the Bremen and Weimar that they instantly engaged. There was\nno alternative to her abandonment but a fleet engagement. O\'Connor chose\nthe latter course. It was by no means a hopeless fight. The Germans,\nthough much more numerous and powerful than the Americans, were in a\ndispersed line measuring nearly forty-five miles from end to end, and\nthere were many chances that before they could gather in for the fight\nthe column of seven Americans would have ripped them from end to end.\n\nThe day broke dim and overcast, and neither the Bremen nor the Weimar\nrealised they had to deal with more than the Susquehanna until the whole\ncolumn drew out from behind her at a distance of a mile or less and\nbore down on them. This was the position of affairs when the Vaterland\nappeared in the sky. The red glow Bert had seen through the column of\nclouds came from the luckless Susquehanna; she lay almost immediately\nbelow, burning fore and aft, but still fighting two of her guns and\nsteaming slowly southward. The Bremen and the Weimar, both hit in\nseveral places, were going west by south and away from her. The American\nfleet, headed by the Theodore Roosevelt, was crossing behind them,\npounding them in succession, steaming in between them and the big modern\nFurst Bismarck, which was coming up from the west. To Bert, however,\nthe names of all these ships were unknown, and for a considerable time\nindeed, misled by the direction in which the combatants were moving, he\nimagined the Germans to be Americans and the Americans Germans. He saw\nwhat appeared to him to be a column of six battleships pursuing three\nothers who were supported by a newcomer, until the fact that the Bremen\nand Weimar were firing into the Susquehanna upset his calculations.\nThen for a time he was hopelessly at a loss. The noise of the guns, too,\nconfused him, they no longer seemed to boom; they went whack, whack,\nwhack, whack, and each faint flash made his heart jump in anticipation\nof the instant impact. He saw these ironclads, too, not in profile,\nas he was accustomed to see ironclads in pictures, but in plan and\ncuriously foreshortened. For the most part they presented empty decks,\nbut here and there little knots of men sheltered behind steel bulwarks.\nThe long, agitated noses of their big guns, jetting thin transparent\nflashes and the broadside activity of the quick-firers, were the chief\nfacts in this bird\'s-eye view. The Americans being steam-turbine ships,\nhad from two to four blast funnels each; the Germans lay lower in the\nwater, having explosive engines, which now for some reason made an\nunwonted muttering roar. Because of their steam propulsion, the American\nships were larger and with a more graceful outline. He saw all these\nforeshortened ships rolling considerably and fighting their guns over\na sea of huge low waves and under the cold, explicit light of dawn. The\nwhole spectacle waved slowly with the long rhythmic rising and beat of\nthe airship.\n\nAt first only the Vaterland of all the flying fleet appeared upon the\nscene below. She hovered high, over the Theodore Roosevelt, keeping\npace with the full speed of that ship. From that ship she must have\nbeen intermittently visible through the drifting clouds. The rest of the\nGerman fleet remained above the cloud canopy at a height of six or seven\nthousand feet, communicating with the flagship by wireless telegraphy,\nbut risking no exposure to the artillery below.\n\nIt is doubtful at what particular time the unlucky Americans realised\nthe presence of this new factor in the fight. No account now survives of\ntheir experience. We have to imagine as well as we can what it must have\nbeen to a battled-strained sailor suddenly glancing upward to discover\nthat huge long silent shape overhead, vaster than any battleship, and\ntrailing now from its hinder quarter a big German flag. Presently, as\nthe sky cleared, more of such ships appeared in the blue through the\ndissolving clouds, and more, all disdainfully free of guns or armour,\nall flying fast to keep pace with the running fight below.\n\nFrom first to last no gun whatever was fired at the Vaterland, and only\na few rifle shots. It was a mere adverse stroke of chance that she had\na man killed aboard her. Nor did she take any direct share in the fight\nuntil the end. She flew above the doomed American fleet while the Prince\nby wireless telegraphy directed the movements of her consorts. Meanwhile\nthe Vogel-stern and Preussen, each with half a dozen drachenflieger in\ntow, went full speed ahead and then dropped through the clouds, perhaps\nfive miles ahead of the Americans. The Theodore Roosevelt let fly at\nonce with the big guns in her forward barbette, but the shells burst far\nbelow the Vogel-stern, and forthwith a dozen single-man drachenflieger\nwere swooping down to make their attack.\n\nBert, craning his neck through the cabin port-hole, saw the whole of\nthat incident, that first encounter of aeroplane and ironclad. He saw\nthe queer German drachenflieger, with their wide flat wings and square\nbox-shaped heads, their wheeled bodies, and their single-man riders,\nsoar down the air like a flight of birds. \"Gaw!\" he said. One to the\nright pitched extravagantly, shot steeply up into the air, burst with a\nloud report, and flamed down into the sea; another plunged nose forward\ninto the water and seemed to fly to pieces as it hit the waves. He\nsaw little men on the deck of the Theodore Roosevelt below, men\nforeshortened in plan into mere heads and feet, running out preparing\nto shoot at the others. Then the foremost flying-machine was rushing\nbetween Bert and the American\'s deck, and then bang! came the thunder\nof its bomb flung neatly at the forward barbette, and a thin little\ncrackling of rifle shots in reply. Whack, whack, whack, went the\nquick-firing guns of the Americans\' battery, and smash came an answering\nshell from the Furst Bismarck. Then a second and third flying-machine\npassed between Bert and the American ironclad, dropping bombs also, and\na fourth, its rider hit by a bullet, reeled down and dashed itself to\npieces and exploded between the shot-torn funnels, blowing them apart.\nBert had a momentary glimpse of a little black creature jumping from the\ncrumpling frame of the flying-machine, hitting the funnel, and falling\nlimply, to be instantly caught and driven to nothingness by the blaze\nand rush of the explosion.\n\nSmash! came a vast explosion in the forward part of the flagship, and a\nhuge piece of metalwork seemed to lift out of her and dump itself\ninto the sea, dropping men and leaving a gap into which a prompt\ndrachenflieger planted a flaring bomb. And then for an instant Bert\nperceived only too clearly in the growing, pitiless light a number of\nminute, convulsively active animalcula scorched and struggling in the\nTheodore Roosevelt\'s foaming wake. What were they? Not men--surely not\nmen? Those drowning, mangled little creatures tore with their clutching\nfingers at Bert\'s soul. \"Oh, Gord!\" he cried, \"Oh, Gord!\" almost\nwhimpering. He looked again and they had gone, and the black stem of the\nAndrew Jackson, a little disfigured by the sinking Bremen\'s last\nshot, was parting the water that had swallowed them into two neatly\nsymmetrical waves. For some moments sheer blank horror blinded Bert to\nthe destruction below.\n\nThen, with an immense rushing sound, bearing as it were a straggling\nvolley of crashing minor explosions on its back, the Susquehanna, three\nmiles and more now to the east, blew up and vanished abruptly in a\nboiling, steaming welter. For a moment nothing was to be seen but\ntumbled water, and--then there came belching up from below, with immense\ngulping noises, eructations of steam and air and petrol and fragments of\ncanvas and woodwork and men.\n\nThat made a distinct pause in the fight. It seemed a long pause to Bert.\nHe found himself looking for the drachenflieger. The flattened ruin of\none was floating abeam of the Monitor, the rest had passed, dropping\nbombs down the American column; several were in the water and apparently\nuninjured, and three or four were still in the air and coming round\nnow in a wide circle to return to their mother airships. The American\nironclads were no longer in column formation; the Theodore Roosevelt,\nbadly damaged, had turned to the southeast, and the Andrew Jackson,\ngreatly battered but uninjured in any fighting part was passing between\nher and the still fresh and vigorous Furst Bismarck to intercept and\nmeet the latter\'s fire. Away to the west the Hermann and the Germanicus\nhad appeared and were coming into action.\n\nIn the pause, after the Susquehanna\'s disaster Bert became aware of a\ntrivial sound like the noise of an ill-greased, ill-hung door that falls\najar--the sound of the men in the Furst Bismarck cheering.\n\nAnd in that pause in the uproar too, the sun rose, the dark waters\nbecame luminously blue, and a torrent of golden light irradiated the\nworld. It came like a sudden smile in a scene of hate and terror. The\ncloud veil had vanished as if by magic, and the whole immensity of the\nGerman air-fleet was revealed in the sky; the air-fleet stooping now\nupon its prey.\n\n\"Whack-bang, whack-bang,\" the guns resumed, but ironclads were not built\nto fight the zenith, and the only hits the Americans scored were a few\nlucky chances in a generally ineffectual rifle fire. Their column was\nnow badly broken, the Susquehanna had gone, the Theodore Roosevelt had\nfallen astern out of the line, with her forward guns disabled, in a heap\nof wreckage, and the Monitor was in some grave trouble. These two had\nceased fire altogether, and so had the Bremen and Weimar, all four ships\nlying within shot of each other in an involuntary truce and with their\nrespective flags still displayed. Only four American ships now, with the\nAndrew Jackson leading, kept to the south-easterly course. And the Furst\nBismarck, the Hermann, and the Germanicus steamed parallel to them and\ndrew ahead of them, fighting heavily. The Vaterland rose slowly in the\nair in preparation for the concluding act of the drama.\n\nThen, falling into place one behind the other, a string of a dozen\nairships dropped with unhurrying swiftness down the air in pursuit of\nthe American fleet. They kept at a height of two thousand feet or more\nuntil they were over and a little in advance of the rearmost ironclad,\nand then stooped swiftly down into a fountain of bullets, and going just\na little faster than the ship below, pelted her thinly protected decks\nwith bombs until they became sheets of detonating flame. So the airships\npassed one after the other along the American column as it sought\nto keep up its fight with the Furst Bismarck, the Hermann, and the\nGermanicus, and each airship added to the destruction and confusion\nits predecessor had made. The American gunfire ceased, except for a few\nheroic shots, but they still steamed on, obstinately unsubdued, bloody,\nbattered, and wrathfully resistant, spitting bullets at the airships\nand unmercifully pounded by the German ironclads. But now Bert had but\nintermittent glimpses of them between the nearer bulks of the airships\nthat assailed them....\n\nIt struck Bert suddenly that the whole battle was receding and growing\nsmall and less thunderously noisy. The Vaterland was rising in the air,\nsteadily and silently, until the impact of the guns no longer smote\nupon the heart but came to the ear dulled by distance, until the four\nsilenced ships to the eastward were little distant things: but were\nthere four? Bert now could see only three of those floating, blackened,\nand smoking rafts of ruin against the sun. But the Bremen had two boats\nout; the Theodore Roosevelt was also dropping boats to where the drift\nof minute objects struggled, rising and falling on the big, broad\nAtlantic waves.... The Vaterland was no longer following the fight. The\nwhole of that hurrying tumult drove away to the south-eastward, growing\nsmaller and less audible as it passed. One of the airships lay on\nthe water burning, a remote monstrous fount of flames, and far in the\nsouth-west appeared first one and then three other German ironclads\nhurrying in support of their consorts....\n\n5\n\nSteadily the Vaterland soared, and the air-fleet soared with her and\ncame round to head for New York, and the battle became a little thing\nfar away, an incident before the breakfast. It dwindled to a string of\ndark shapes and one smoking yellow flare that presently became a mere\nindistinct smear upon the vast horizon and the bright new day, that was\nat last altogether lost to sight...\n\nSo it was that Bert Smallways saw the first fight of the airship and the\nlast fight of those strangest things in the whole history of war:\nthe ironclad battleships, which began their career with the floating\nbatteries of the Emperor Napoleon III in the Crimean war and lasted,\nwith an enormous expenditure of human energy and resources, for seventy\nyears. In that space of time the world produced over twelve thousand\nfive hundred of these strange monsters, in schools, in types, in series,\neach larger and heavier and more deadly than its predecessors. Each in\nits turn was hailed as the last birth of time, most in their turn were\nsold for old iron. Only about five per cent of them ever fought in a\nbattle. Some foundered, some went ashore, and broke up, several rammed\none another by accident and sank. The lives of countless men were spent\nin their service, the splendid genius, and patience of thousands of\nengineers and inventors, wealth and material beyond estimating; to their\naccount we must put, stunted and starved lives on land, millions of\nchildren sent to toil unduly, innumerable opportunities of fine living\nundeveloped and lost. Money had to be found for them at any cost--that\nwas the law of a nation\'s existence during that strange time. Surely\nthey were the weirdest, most destructive and wasteful megatheria in the\nwhole history of mechanical invention.\n\nAnd then cheap things of gas and basket-work made an end of them\naltogether, smiting out of the sky!...\n\nNever before had Bert Smallways seen pure destruction, never had he\nrealised the mischief and waste of war. His startled mind rose to the\nconception; this also is in life. Out of all this fierce torrent of\nsensation one impression rose and became cardinal--the impression of the\nmen of the Theodore Roosevelt who had struggled in the water after the\nexplosion of the first bomb. \"Gaw!\" he said at the memory; \"it might\n\'ave been me and Grubb!... I suppose you kick about and get the water in\nyour mouf. I don\'t suppose it lasts long.\"\n\nHe became anxious to see how Kurt was affected by these things. Also he\nperceived he was hungry. He hesitated towards the door of the cabin and\npeeped out into the passage. Down forward, near the gangway to the men\'s\nmess, stood a little group of air sailors looking at something that\nwas hidden from him in a recess. One of them was in the light diver\'s\ncostume Bert had already seen in the gas chamber turret, and he was\nmoved to walk along and look at this person more closely and examine the\nhelmet he carried under his arm. But he forgot about the helmet when he\ngot to the recess, because there he found lying on the floor the dead\nbody of the boy who had been killed by a bullet from the Theodore\nRoosevelt.\n\nBert had not observed that any bullets at all had reached the Vaterland\nor, indeed, imagined himself under fire. He could not understand for a\ntime what had killed the lad, and no one explained to him.\n\nThe boy lay just as he had fallen and died, with his jacket torn and\nscorched, his shoulder-blade smashed and burst away from his body and\nall the left side of his body ripped and rent. There was much blood.\nThe sailors stood listening to the man with the helmet, who made\nexplanations and pointed to the round bullet hole in the floor and the\nsmash in the panel of the passage upon which the still vicious missile\nhad spent the residue of its energy. All the faces were grave and\nearnest: they were the faces of sober, blond, blue-eyed men accustomed\nto obedience and an orderly life, to whom this waste, wet, painful thing\nthat had been a comrade came almost as strangely as it did to Bert.\n\nA peal of wild laughter sounded down the passage in the direction of the\nlittle gallery and something spoke--almost shouted--in German, in tones\nof exultation.\n\nOther voices at a lower, more respectful pitch replied.\n\n\"Der Prinz,\" said a voice, and all the men became stiffer and less\nnatural. Down the passage appeared a group of figures, Lieutenant Kurt\nwalking in front carrying a packet of papers.\n\nHe stopped point blank when he saw the thing in the recess, and his\nruddy face went white.\n\n\"So!\" said he in surprise.\n\nThe Prince was following him, talking over his shoulder to Von\nWinterfeld and the Kapitan.\n\n\"Eh?\" he said to Kurt, stopping in mid-sentence, and followed the\ngesture of Kurt\'s hand. He glared at the crumpled object in the recess\nand seemed to think for a moment.\n\nHe made a slight, careless gesture towards the boy\'s body and turned to\nthe Kapitan.\n\n\"Dispose of that,\" he said in German, and passed on, finishing his\nsentence to Von Winterfeld in the same cheerful tone in which it had\nbegun.\n\n6\n\nThe deep impression of helplessly drowning men that Bert had brought\nfrom the actual fight in the Atlantic mixed itself up inextricably with\nthat of the lordly figure of Prince Karl Albert gesturing aside the dead\nbody of the Vaterland sailor. Hitherto he had rather liked the idea of\nwar as being a jolly, smashing, exciting affair, something like a\nBank Holiday rag on a large scale, and on the whole agreeable and\nexhilarating. Now he knew it a little better.\n\nThe next day there was added to his growing disillusionment a third\nugly impression, trivial indeed to describe, a mere necessary everyday\nincident of a state of war, but very distressing to his urbanised\nimagination. One writes \"urbanised\" to express the distinctive\ngentleness of the period. It was quite peculiar to the crowded townsmen\nof that time, and different altogether from the normal experience of any\npreceding age, that they never saw anything killed, never encountered,\nsave through the mitigating media of book or picture, the fact of lethal\nviolence that underlies all life. Three times in his existence, and\nthree times only, had Bert seen a dead human being, and he had never\nassisted at the killing of anything bigger than a new-born kitten.\n\nThe incident that gave him his third shock was the execution of one\nof the men on the Adler for carrying a box of matches. The case was\na flagrant one. The man had forgotten he had it upon him when coming\naboard. Ample notice had been given to every one of the gravity of this\noffence, and notices appeared at numerous points all over the airships.\nThe man\'s defence was that he had grown so used to the notices and\nhad been so preoccupied with his work that he hadn\'t applied them to\nhimself; he pleaded, in his defence, what is indeed in military affairs\nanother serious crime, inadvertency. He was tried by his captain, and\nthe sentence confirmed by wireless telegraphy by the Prince, and it was\ndecided to make his death an example to the whole fleet. \"The Germans,\"\nthe Prince declared, \"hadn\'t crossed the Atlantic to go wool gathering.\"\nAnd in order that this lesson in discipline and obedience might be\nvisible to every one, it was determined not to electrocute or drown but\nhang the offender.\n\nAccordingly the air-fleet came clustering round the flagship like carp\nin a pond at feeding time. The Adler hung at the zenith immediately\nalongside the flagship. The whole crew of the Vaterland assembled\nupon the hanging gallery; the crews of the other airships manned the\nair-chambers, that is to say, clambered up the outer netting to the\nupper sides. The officers appeared upon the machine-gun platforms. Bert\nthought it an altogether stupendous sight, looking down, as he was, upon\nthe entire fleet. Far off below two steamers on the rippled blue water,\none British and the other flying the American flag, seemed the minutest\nobjects, and marked the scale. They were immensely distant. Bert stood\non the gallery, curious to see the execution, but uncomfortable, because\nthat terrible blond Prince was within a dozen feet of him, glaring\nterribly, with his arms folded, and his heels together in military\nfashion.\n\nThey hung the man from the Adler. They gave him sixty feet of rope, so,\nthat he should hang and dangle in the sight of all evil-doers who might\nbe hiding matches or contemplating any kindred disobedience. Bert\nsaw the man standing, a living, reluctant man, no doubt scared and\nrebellious enough in his heart, but outwardly erect and obedient, on\nthe lower gallery of the Adler about a hundred yards away. Then they had\nthrust him overboard.\n\nDown he fell, hands and feet extending, until with a jerk he was at the\nend of the rope. Then he ought to have died and swung edifyingly, but\ninstead a more terrible thing happened; his head came right off, and\ndown the body went spinning to the sea, feeble, grotesque, fantastic,\nwith the head racing it in its fall.\n\n\"Ugh!\" said Bert, clutching the rail before him, and a sympathetic grunt\ncame from several of the men beside him.\n\n\"So!\" said the Prince, stiffer and sterner, glared for some seconds,\nthen turned to the gang way up into the airship.\n\nFor a long time Bert remained clinging to the railing of the gallery. He\nwas almost physically sick with the horror of this trifling incident.\nHe found it far more dreadful than the battle. He was indeed a very\ndegenerate, latter-day, civilised person.\n\nLate that afternoon Kurt came into the cabin and found him curled up\non his locker, and looking very white and miserable. Kurt had also lost\nsomething of his pristine freshness.\n\n\"Sea-sick?\" he asked.\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"We ought to reach New York this evening. There\'s a good breeze coming\nup under our tails. Then we shall see things.\"\n\nBert did not answer.\n\nKurt opened out folding chair and table, and rustled for a time with\nhis maps. Then he fell thinking darkly. He roused himself presently, and\nlooked at his companion. \"What\'s the matter?\" he said.\n\n\"Nothing!\"\n\nKurt stared threateningly. \"What\'s the matter?\"\n\n\"I saw them kill that chap. I saw that flying-machine man hit the\nfunnels of the big ironclad. I saw that dead chap in the passage. I seen\ntoo much smashing and killing lately. That\'s the matter. I don\'t like\nit. I didn\'t know war was this sort of thing. I\'m a civilian. I don\'t\nlike it.\"\n\n\"_I_ don\'t like it,\" said Kurt. \"By Jove, no!\"\n\n\"I\'ve read about war, and all that, but when you see it it\'s different.\nAnd I\'m gettin\' giddy. I\'m gettin\' giddy. I didn\'t mind a bit being up\nin that balloon at first, but all this looking down and floating over\nthings and smashing up people, it\'s getting on my nerves. See?\"\n\n\"It\'ll have to get off again....\"\n\nKurt thought. \"You\'re not the only one. The men are all getting strung\nup. The flying--that\'s just flying. Naturally it makes one a little\nswimmy in the head at first. As for the killing, we\'ve got to be\nblooded; that\'s all. We\'re tame, civilised men. And we\'ve got to get\nblooded. I suppose there\'s not a dozen men on the ship who\'ve really\nseen bloodshed. Nice, quiet, law-abiding Germans they\'ve been so far....\nHere they are--in for it. They\'re a bit squeamy now, but you wait till\nthey\'ve got their hands in.\"\n\nHe reflected. \"Everybody\'s getting a bit strung up,\" he said.\n\nHe turned again to his maps. Bert sat crumpled up in the corner,\napparently heedless of him. For some time both kept silence.\n\n\"What did the Prince want to go and \'ang that chap for?\" asked Bert,\nsuddenly.\n\n\"That was all right,\" said Kurt, \"that was all right. QUITE right. Here\nwere the orders, plain as the nose on your face, and here was that fool\ngoing about with matches--\"\n\n\"Gaw! I shan\'t forget that bit in a \'urry,\" said Bert irrelevantly.\n\nKurt did not answer him. He was measuring their distance from New York\nand speculating. \"Wonder what the American aeroplanes are like?\" he\nsaid. \"Something like our drachenflieger.... We shall know by this time\nto-morrow.... I wonder what we shall know? I wonder. Suppose, after all,\nthey put up a fight.... Rum sort of fight!\"\n\nHe whistled softly and mused. Presently he fretted out of the cabin, and\nlater Bert found him in the twilight upon the swinging platform, staring\nahead, and speculating about the things that might happen on the morrow.\nClouds veiled the sea again, and the long straggling wedge of air-ships\nrising and falling as they flew seemed like a flock of strange new\nbirths in a Chaos that had neither earth nor water but only mist and\nsky.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI. HOW WAR CAME TO NEW YORK\n\n1\n\nThe City of New York was in the year of the German attack the largest,\nrichest, in many respects the most splendid, and in some, the wickedest\ncity the world had ever seen. She was the supreme type of the City of\nthe Scientific Commercial Age; she displayed its greatness, its power,\nits ruthless anarchic enterprise, and its social disorganisation most\nstrikingly and completely. She had long ousted London from her pride of\nplace as the modern Babylon, she was the centre of the world\'s finance,\nthe world\'s trade, and the world\'s pleasure; and men likened her to\nthe apocalyptic cities of the ancient prophets. She sat drinking up the\nwealth of a continent as Rome once drank the wealth of the Mediterranean\nand Babylon the wealth of the east. In her streets one found the\nextremes of magnificence and misery, of civilisation and disorder. In\none quarter, palaces of marble, laced and, crowned with light and flame\nand flowers, towered up into her marvellous twilights beautiful, beyond\ndescription; in another, a black and sinister polyglot population\nsweltered in indescribable congestion in warrens, and excavations beyond\nthe power and knowledge of government. Her vice, her crime, her law\nalike were inspired by a fierce and terrible energy, and like the great\ncities of mediaeval Italy, her ways were dark and adventurous with\nprivate war.\n\nIt was the peculiar shape of Manhattan Island, pressed in by arms of the\nsea on either side, and incapable of comfortable expansion, except along\na narrow northward belt, that first gave the New York architects their\nbias for extreme vertical dimensions. Every need was lavishly supplied\nthem--money, material, labour; only space was restricted. To begin,\ntherefore, they built high perforce. But to do so was to discover a\nwhole new world of architectural beauty, of exquisite ascendant lines,\nand long after the central congestion had been relieved by tunnels\nunder the sea, four colossal bridges over the east river, and a dozen\nmono-rail cables east and west, the upward growth went on. In many ways\nNew York and her gorgeous plutocracy repeated Venice in the magnificence\nof her architecture, painting, metal-work and sculpture, for example,\nin the grim intensity of her political method, in her maritime and\ncommercial ascendancy. But she repeated no previous state at all in the\nlax disorder of her internal administration, a laxity that made vast\nsections of her area lawless beyond precedent, so that it was possible\nfor whole districts to be impassable, while civil war raged between\nstreet and street, and for Alsatias to exist in her midst in which the\nofficial police never set foot. She was an ethnic whirlpool. The flags\nof all nations flew in her harbour, and at the climax, the yearly\ncoming and going overseas numbered together upwards of two million human\nbeings. To Europe she was America, to America she was the gateway of\nthe world. But to tell the story of New York would be to write a social\nhistory of the world; saints and martyrs, dreamers and scoundrels, the\ntraditions of a thousand races and a thousand religions, went to her\nmaking and throbbed and jostled in her streets. And over all that\ntorrential confusion of men and purposes fluttered that strange flag,\nthe stars and stripes, that meant at once the noblest thing in life,\nand the least noble, that is to say, Liberty on the one hand, and on\nthe other the base jealousy the individual self-seeker feels towards the\ncommon purpose of the State.\n\nFor many generations New York had taken no heed of war, save as a thing\nthat happened far away, that affected prices and supplied the newspapers\nwith exciting headlines and pictures. The New Yorkers felt perhaps even\nmore certainly than the English had done that war in their own land\nwas an impossible thing. In that they shared the delusion of all North\nAmerica. They felt as secure as spectators at a bullfight; they risked\ntheir money perhaps on the result, but that was all. And such ideas of\nwar as the common Americans possessed were derived from the limited,\npicturesque, adventurous war of the past. They saw war as they saw\nhistory, through an iridescent mist, deodorised, scented indeed, with\nall its essential cruelties tactfully hidden away. They were inclined to\nregret it as something ennobling, to sigh that it could no longer come\ninto their own private experience. They read with interest, if not with\navidity, of their new guns, of their immense and still more immense\nironclads, of their incredible and still more incredible explosives, but\njust what these tremendous engines of destruction might mean for their\npersonal lives never entered their heads. They did not, so far as one\ncan judge from their contemporary literature, think that they meant\nanything to their personal lives at all. They thought America was safe\namidst all this piling up of explosives. They cheered the flag by habit\nand tradition, they despised other nations, and whenever there was an\ninternational difficulty they were intensely patriotic, that is to\nsay, they were ardently against any native politician who did not say,\nthreaten, and do harsh and uncompromising things to the antagonist\npeople. They were spirited to Asia, spirited to Germany, so spirited to\nGreat Britain that the international attitude of the mother country to\nher great daughter was constantly compared in contemporary caricature to\nthat between a hen-pecked husband and a vicious young wife. And for the\nrest, they all went about their business and pleasure as if war had died\nout with the megatherium....\n\nAnd then suddenly, into a world peacefully busied for the most part upon\narmaments and the perfection of explosives, war came; came the shock of\nrealising that the guns were going off, that the masses of inflammable\nmaterial all over the world were at last ablaze.\n\n2\n\nThe immediate effect upon New York of the sudden onset of war was merely\nto intensify her normal vehemence.\n\nThe newspapers and magazines that fed the American mind--for books upon\nthis impatient continent had become simply material for the energy\nof collectors--were instantly a coruscation of war pictures and of\nheadlines that rose like rockets and burst like shells. To the normal\nhigh-strung energy of New York streets was added a touch of war-fever.\nGreat crowds assembled, more especially in the dinner hour, in Madison\nSquare about the Farragut monument, to listen to and cheer patriotic\nspeeches, and a veritable epidemic of little flags and buttons swept\nthrough these great torrents of swiftly moving young people, who poured\ninto New York of a morning by car and mono-rail and subway and train,\nto toil, and ebb home again between the hours of five and seven. It was\ndangerous not to wear a war button. The splendid music-halls of the time\nsank every topic in patriotism and evolved scenes of wild enthusiasm,\nstrong men wept at the sight of the national banner sustained by the\nwhole strength of the ballet, and special searchlights and illuminations\namazed the watching angels. The churches re-echoed the national\nenthusiasm in graver key and slower measure, and the aerial and naval\npreparations on the East River were greatly incommoded by the multitude\nof excursion steamers which thronged, helpfully cheering, about them.\nThe trade in small-arms was enormously stimulated, and many overwrought\ncitizens found an immediate relief for their emotions in letting off\nfireworks of a more or less heroic, dangerous, and national character\nin the public streets. Small children\'s air-balloons of the latest model\nattached to string became a serious check to the pedestrian in Central\nPark. And amidst scenes of indescribable emotion the Albany legislature\nin permanent session, and with a generous suspension of rules and\nprecedents, passed through both Houses the long-disputed Bill for\nuniversal military service in New York State.\n\nCritics of the American character are disposed to consider--that up\nto the actual impact of the German attack the people of New York dealt\naltogether too much with the war as if it was a political demonstration.\nLittle or no damage, they urge, was done to either the German or\nJapanese forces by the wearing of buttons, the waving of small flags,\nthe fireworks, or the songs. They forgot that, under the conditions of\nwarfare a century of science had brought about, the non-military section\nof the population could do no serious damage in any form to their\nenemies, and that there was no reason, therefore, why they should not do\nas they did. The balance of military efficiency was shifting back from\nthe many to the few, from the common to the specialised.\n\nThe days when the emotional infantryman decided battles had passed by\nfor ever. War had become a matter of apparatus of special training\nand skill of the most intricate kind. It had become undemocratic. And\nwhatever the value of the popular excitement, there can be no denying\nthat the small regular establishment of the United States Government,\nconfronted by this totally unexpected emergency of an armed invasion\nfrom Europe, acted with vigour, science, and imagination. They were\ntaken by surprise so far as the diplomatic situation was concerned,\nand their equipment for building either navigables or aeroplanes was\ncontemptible in comparison with the huge German parks. Still they set to\nwork at once to prove to the world that the spirit that had created the\nMonitor and the Southern submarines of 1864 was not dead. The chief of\nthe aeronautic establishment near West Point was Cabot Sinclair, and\nhe allowed himself but one single moment of the posturing that was so\nuniversal in that democratic time. \"We have chosen our epitaphs,\"\nhe said to a reporter, \"and we are going to have, \'They did all they\ncould.\' Now run away!\"\n\nThe curious thing is that they did all do all they could; there is no\nexception known. Their only defect indeed was a defect of style. One of\nthe most striking facts historically about this war, and the one that\nmakes the complete separation that had arisen between the methods\nof warfare and the necessity of democratic support, is the effectual\nsecrecy of the Washington authorities about their airships. They did\nnot bother to confide a single fact of their preparations to the public.\nThey did not even condescend to talk to Congress. They burked and\nsuppressed every inquiry. The war was fought by the President and the\nSecretaries of State in an entirely autocratic manner. Such publicity as\nthey sought was merely to anticipate and prevent inconvenient agitation\nto defend particular points. They realised that the chief danger in\naerial warfare from an excitable and intelligent public would be a\nclamour for local airships and aeroplanes to defend local interests.\nThis, with such resources as they possessed, might lead to a fatal\ndivision and distribution of the national forces. Particularly they\nfeared that they might be forced into a premature action to defend\nNew York. They realised with prophetic insight that this would be the\nparticular advantage the Germans would seek. So they took great pains\nto direct the popular mind towards defensive artillery, and to divert it\nfrom any thought of aerial battle. Their real preparations they masked\nbeneath ostensible ones. There was at Washington a large reserve of\nnaval guns, and these were distributed rapidly, conspicuously, and with\nmuch press attention, among the Eastern cities. They were mounted for\nthe most part upon hills and prominent crests around the threatened\ncentres of population. They were mounted upon rough adaptations of the\nDoan swivel, which at that time gave the maximum vertical range to a\nheavy gun. Much of this artillery was still unmounted, and nearly all of\nit was unprotected when the German air-fleet reached New York. And down\nin the crowded streets, when that occurred, the readers of the New\nYork papers were regaling themselves with wonderful and wonderfully\nillustrated accounts of such matters as:--\n\nTHE SECRET OF THE THUNDERBOLT\n\nAGED SCIENTIST PERFECTS ELECTRIC GUN\n\nTO ELECTROCUTE AIRSHIP CREWS BY UPWARD LIGHTNING\n\nWASHINGTON ORDERS FIVE HUNDRED\n\nWAR SECRETARY LODGE DELIGHTED\n\nSAYS THEY WILL SUIT THE GERMANS DOWN TO THE GROUND\n\nPRESIDENT PUBLICLY APPLAUDS THIS MERRY QUIP\n\n3\n\nThe German fleet reached New York in advance of the news of the American\nnaval disaster. It reached New York in the late afternoon and was first\nseen by watchers at Ocean Grove and Long Branch coming swiftly out of\nthe southward sea and going away to the northwest. The flagship passed\nalmost vertically over the Sandy Hook observation station, rising\nrapidly as it did so, and in a few minutes all New York was vibrating to\nthe Staten Island guns.\n\nSeveral of these guns, and especially that at Giffords and the one on\nBeacon Hill above Matawan, were remarkably well handled. The former, at\na distance of five miles, and with an elevation of six thousand feet,\nsent a shell to burst so close to the Vaterland that a pane of the\nPrince\'s forward window was smashed by a fragment. This sudden explosion\nmade Bert tuck in his head with the celerity of a startled tortoise. The\nwhole air-fleet immediately went up steeply to a height of about twelve\nthousand feet and at that level passed unscathed over the ineffectual\nguns. The airships lined out as they moved forward into the form of a\nflattened V, with its apex towards the city, and with the flagship going\nhighest at the apex. The two ends of the V passed over Plumfield and\nJamaica Bay, respectively, and the Prince directed his course a little\nto the east of the Narrows, soared over Upper Bay, and came to rest\nover Jersey City in a position that dominated lower New York. There\nthe monsters hung, large and wonderful in the evening light, serenely\nregardless of the occasional rocket explosions and flashing shell-bursts\nin the lower air.\n\nIt was a pause of mutual inspection. For a time naive humanity swamped\nthe conventions of warfare altogether; the interest of the millions\nbelow and of the thousands above alike was spectacular. The evening was\nunexpectedly fine--only a few thin level bands of clouds at seven or\neight thousand feet broke its luminous clarity. The wind had dropped; it\nwas an evening infinitely peaceful and still. The heavy concussions of\nthe distant guns and those incidental harmless pyrotechnics at the level\nof the clouds seemed to have as little to do with killing and force,\nterror and submission, as a salute at a naval review. Below, every\npoint of vantage bristled with spectators, the roofs of the towering\nbuildings, the public squares, the active ferry boats, and every\nfavourable street intersection had its crowds: all the river piers\nwere dense with people, the Battery Park was solid black with east-side\npopulation, and every position of advantage in Central Park and along\nRiverside Drive had its peculiar and characteristic assembly from the\nadjacent streets. The footways of the great bridges over the East River\nwere also closely packed and blocked. Everywhere shopkeepers had left\ntheir shops, men their work, and women and children their homes, to come\nout and see the marvel.\n\n\"It beat,\" they declared, \"the newspapers.\"\n\nAnd from above, many of the occupants of the airships stared with an\nequal curiosity. No city in the world was ever so finely placed as New\nYork, so magnificently cut up by sea and bluff and river, so admirably\ndisposed to display the tall effects of buildings, the complex\nimmensities of bridges and mono-railways and feats of engineering.\nLondon, Paris, Berlin, were shapeless, low agglomerations beside it. Its\nport reached to its heart like Venice, and, like Venice, it was obvious,\ndramatic, and proud. Seen from above it was alive with crawling\ntrains and cars, and at a thousand points it was already breaking into\nquivering light. New York was altogether at its best that evening, its\nsplendid best.\n\n\"Gaw! What a place!\" said Bert.\n\nIt was so great, and in its collective effect so pacifically\nmagnificent, that to make war upon it seemed incongruous beyond measure,\nlike laying siege to the National Gallery or attacking respectable\npeople in an hotel dining-room with battle-axe and mail. It was in its\nentirety so large, so complex, so delicately immense, that to bring it\nto the issue of warfare was like driving a crowbar into the mechanism\nof a clock. And the fish-like shoal of great airships hovering light\nand sunlit above, filling the sky, seemed equally remote from the ugly\nforcefulness of war. To Kurt, to Smallways, to I know not how many more\nof the people in the air-fleet came the distinctest apprehension of\nthese incompatibilities. But in the head of the Prince Karl Albert were\nthe vapours of romance: he was a conqueror, and this was the enemy\'s\ncity. The greater the city, the greater the triumph. No doubt he had a\ntime of tremendous exultation and sensed beyond all precedent the sense\nof power that night.\n\nThere came an end at last to that pause. Some wireless communications\nhad failed of a satisfactory ending, and fleet and city remembered they\nwere hostile powers. \"Look!\" cried the multitude; \"look!\"\n\n\"What are they doing?\"\n\n\"What?\"... Down through the twilight sank five attacking airships, one\nto the Navy Yard on East River, one to City Hall, two over the great\nbusiness buildings of Wall Street and Lower Broadway, one to the\nBrooklyn Bridge, dropping from among their fellows through the danger\nzone from the distant guns smoothly and rapidly to a safe proximity to\nthe city masses. At that descent all the cars in the streets stopped\nwith dramatic suddenness, and all the lights that had been coming on in\nthe streets and houses went out again. For the City Hall had awakened\nand was conferring by telephone with the Federal command and taking\nmeasures for defence. The City Hall was asking for airships, refusing to\nsurrender as Washington advised, and developing into a centre of intense\nemotion, of hectic activity. Everywhere and hastily the police began to\nclear the assembled crowds. \"Go to your homes,\" they said; and the word\nwas passed from mouth to mouth, \"There\'s going to be trouble.\" A chill\nof apprehension ran through the city, and men hurrying in the unwonted\ndarkness across City Hall Park and Union Square came upon the dim forms\nof soldiers and guns, and were challenged and sent back. In half an\nhour New York had passed from serene sunset and gaping admiration to a\ntroubled and threatening twilight.\n\nThe first loss of life occurred in the panic rush from Brooklyn Bridge\nas the airship approached it. With the cessation of the traffic an\nunusual stillness came upon New York, and the disturbing concussions of\nthe futile defending guns on the hills about grew more and more audible.\nAt last these ceased also. A pause of further negotiation followed.\nPeople sat in darkness, sought counsel from telephones that were dumb.\nThen into the expectant hush came a great crash and uproar, the breaking\ndown of the Brooklyn Bridge, the rifle fire from the Navy Yard, and the\nbursting of bombs in Wall Street and the City Hall. New York as a whole\ncould do nothing, could understand nothing. New York in the darkness\npeered and listened to these distant sounds until presently they died\naway as suddenly as they had begun. \"What could be happening?\" They\nasked it in vain.\n\nA long, vague period intervened, and people looking out of the windows\nof upper rooms discovered the dark hulls of German airships, gliding\nslowly and noiselessly, quite close at hand. Then quietly the electric\nlights came on again, and an uproar of nocturnal newsvendors began in\nthe streets.\n\nThe units of that vast and varied population bought and learnt what\nhad happened; there had been a fight and New York had hoisted the white\nflag.\n\n4\n\nThe lamentable incidents that followed the surrender of New York seem\nnow in the retrospect to be but the necessary and inevitable consequence\nof the clash of modern appliances and social conditions produced by\nthe scientific century on the one hand, and the tradition of a crude,\nromantic patriotism on the other. At first people received the fact\nwith an irresponsible detachment, much as they would have received the\nslowing down of the train in which they were travelling or the erection\nof a public monument by the city to which they belonged.\n\n\"We have surrendered. Dear me! HAVE we?\" was rather the manner in which\nthe first news was met. They took it in the same spectacular spirit they\nhad displayed at the first apparition of the air-fleet. Only slowly was\nthis realisation of a capitulation suffused with the flush of passion,\nonly with reflection did they make any personal application. \"WE have\nsurrendered!\" came later; \"in us America is defeated.\" Then they began\nto burn and tingle.\n\nThe newspapers, which were issued about one in the morning contained no\nparticulars of the terms upon which New York had yielded--nor did\nthey give any intimation of the quality of the brief conflict that had\npreceded the capitulation. The later issues remedied these deficiencies.\nThere came the explicit statement of the agreement to victual the\nGerman airships, to supply the complement of explosives to replace\nthose employed in the fight and in the destruction of the North Atlantic\nfleet, to pay the enormous ransom of forty million dollars, and to\nsurrender the flotilla in the East River. There came, too, longer and longer\ndescriptions of the smashing up of the City Hall and the Navy Yard, and\npeople began to realise faintly what those brief minutes of uproar had\nmeant. They read the tale of men blown to bits, of futile soldiers\nin that localised battle fighting against hope amidst an indescribable\nwreckage, of flags hauled down by weeping men. And these strange\nnocturnal editions contained also the first brief cables from Europe\nof the fleet disaster, the North Atlantic fleet for which New York had\nalways felt an especial pride and solicitude. Slowly, hour by hour, the\ncollective consciousness woke up, the tide of patriotic astonishment and\nhumiliation came floating in. America had come upon disaster; suddenly\nNew York discovered herself with amazement giving place to wrath\nunspeakable, a conquered city under the hand of her conqueror.\n\nAs that fact shaped itself in the public mind, there sprang up, as\nflames spring up, an angry repudiation. \"No!\" cried New York, waking in\nthe dawn. \"No! I am not defeated. This is a dream.\" Before day broke\nthe swift American anger was running through all the city, through every\nsoul in those contagious millions. Before it took action, before it took\nshape, the men in the airships could feel the gigantic insurgence of\nemotion, as cattle and natural creatures feel, it is said, the coming\nof an earthquake. The newspapers of the Knype group first gave the thing\nwords and a formula. \"We do not agree,\" they said simply. \"We have been\nbetrayed!\" Men took that up everywhere, it passed from mouth to mouth,\nat every street corner under the paling lights of dawn orators stood\nunchecked, calling upon the spirit of America to arise, making the\nshame a personal reality to every one who heard. To Bert, listening five\nhundred feet above, it seemed that the city, which had at first produced\nonly confused noises, was now humming like a hive of bees--of very angry\nbees.\n\nAfter the smashing of the City Hall and Post-Office, the white flag had\nbeen hoisted from a tower of the old Park Row building, and thither had\ngone Mayor O\'Hagen, urged thither indeed by the terror-stricken property\nowners of lower New York, to negotiate the capitulation with Von\nWinterfeld. The Vaterland, having dropped the secretary by a rope\nladder, remained hovering, circling very slowly above the great\nbuildings, old and new, that clustered round City Hall Park, while the\nHelmholz, which had done the fighting there, rose overhead to a height\nof perhaps two thousand feet. So Bert had a near view of all that\noccurred in that central place. The City Hall and Court House, the\nPost-Office and a mass of buildings on the west side of Broadway, had\nbeen badly damaged, and the three former were a heap of blackened ruins.\nIn the case of the first two the loss of life had not been considerable,\nbut a great multitude of workers, including many girls and women, had\nbeen caught in the destruction of the Post-Office, and a little army of\nvolunteers with white badges entered behind the firemen, bringing out\nthe often still living bodies, for the most part frightfully charred,\nand carrying them into the big Monson building close at hand. Everywhere\nthe busy firemen were directing their bright streams of water upon the\nsmouldering masses: their hose lay about the square, and long cordons of\npolice held back the gathering black masses of people, chiefly from the\neast side, from these central activities.\n\nIn violent and extraordinary contrast with this scene of destruction,\nclose at hand were the huge newspaper establishments of Park Row. They\nwere all alight and working; they had not been abandoned even while\nthe actual bomb throwing was going on, and now staff and presses were\nvehemently active, getting out the story, the immense and dreadful story\nof the night, developing comment and, in most cases, spreading the idea\nof resistance under the very noses of the airships. For a long time Bert\ncould not imagine what these callously active offices could be, then he\ndetected the noise of the presses and emitted his \"Gaw!\"\n\nBeyond these newspaper buildings again, and partially hidden by the\narches of the old Elevated Railway of New York (long since converted\ninto a mono-rail), there was another cordon of police and a sort of\nencampment of ambulances and doctors, busy with the dead and wounded who\nhad been killed early in the night by the panic upon Brooklyn Bridge.\nAll this he saw in the perspectives of a bird\'s-eye view, as things\nhappening in a big, irregular-shaped pit below him, between cliffs of\nhigh building. Northward he looked along the steep canon of Broadway,\ndown whose length at intervals crowds were assembling about excited\nspeakers; and when he lifted his eyes he saw the chimneys and\ncable-stacks and roof spaces of New York, and everywhere now over these\nthe watching, debating people clustered, except where the fires raged\nand the jets of water flew. Everywhere, too, were flagstaffs devoid of\nflags; one white sheet drooped and flapped and drooped again over the\nPark Row buildings. And upon the lurid lights, the festering movement\nand intense shadows of this strange scene, there was breaking now the\ncold, impartial dawn.\n\nFor Bert Smallways all this was framed in the frame of the open\nporthole. It was a pale, dim world outside that dark and tangible\nrim. All night he had clutched at that rim, jumped and quivered at\nexplosions, and watched phantom events. Now he had been high and now\nlow; now almost beyond hearing, now flying close to crashings and shouts\nand outcries. He had seen airships flying low and swift over darkened\nand groaning streets; watched great buildings, suddenly red-lit amidst\nthe shadows, crumple at the smashing impact of bombs; witnessed for\nthe first time in his life the grotesque, swift onset of insatiable\nconflagrations. From it all he felt detached, disembodied. The Vaterland\ndid not even fling a bomb; she watched and ruled. Then down they had\ncome at last to hover over City Hall Park, and it had crept in upon his\nmind, chillingly, terrifyingly, that these illuminated black masses\nwere great offices afire, and that the going to and fro of minute, dim\nspectres of lantern-lit grey and white was a harvesting of the wounded\nand the dead. As the light grew clearer he began to understand more and\nmore what these crumpled black things signified....\n\nHe had watched hour after hour since first New York had risen out of the\nblue indistinctness of the landfall. With the daylight he experienced an\nintolerable fatigue.\n\nHe lifted weary eyes to the pink flush in the sky, yawned immensely, and\ncrawled back whispering to himself across the cabin to the locker. He\ndid not so much lie down upon that as fall upon it and instantly become\nasleep.\n\nThere, hours after, sprawling undignified and sleeping profoundly,\nKurt found him, a very image of the democratic mind confronted with the\nproblems of a time too complex for its apprehension. His face was\npale and indifferent, his mouth wide open, and he snored. He snored\ndisagreeably.\n\nKurt regarded him for a moment with a mild distaste. Then he kicked his\nankle.\n\n\"Wake up,\" he said to Smallways\' stare, \"and lie down decent.\"\n\nBert sat up and rubbed his eyes.\n\n\"Any more fightin\' yet?\" he asked.\n\n\"No,\" said Kurt, and sat down, a tired man.\n\n\"Gott!\" he cried presently, rubbing his hands over his face, \"but\nI\'d like a cold bath! I\'ve been looking for stray bullet holes in the\nair-chambers all night until now.\" He yawned. \"I must sleep. You\'d\nbetter clear out, Smallways. I can\'t stand you here this morning. You\'re\nso infernally ugly and useless. Have you had your rations? No! Well, go\nin and get \'em, and don\'t come back. Stick in the gallery....\"\n\n5\n\nSo Bert, slightly refreshed by coffee and sleep, resumed his helpless\nco-operation in the War in the Air. He went down into the little gallery\nas the lieutenant had directed, and clung to the rail at the extreme end\nbeyond the look-out man, trying to seem as inconspicuous and harmless a\nfragment of life as possible.\n\nA wind was rising rather strongly from the south-east. It obliged the\nVaterland to come about in that direction, and made her roll a\ngreat deal as she went to and fro over Manhattan Island. Away in the\nnorth-west clouds gathered. The throb-throb of her slow screw working\nagainst the breeze was much more perceptible than when she was going\nfull speed ahead; and the friction of the wind against the underside of\nthe gas-chamber drove a series of shallow ripples along it and made\na faint flapping sound like, but fainter than, the beating of ripples\nunder the stem of a boat. She was stationed over the temporary City Hall\nin the Park Row building, and every now and then she would descend\nto resume communication with the mayor and with Washington. But the\nrestlessness of the Prince would not suffer him to remain for long in\nany one place. Now he would circle over the Hudson and East River; now\nhe would go up high, as if to peer away into the blue distances; once he\nascended so swiftly and so far that mountain sickness overtook him and\nthe crew and forced him down again; and Bert shared the dizziness and\nnausea.\n\nThe swaying view varied with these changes of altitude. Now they would\nbe low and close, and he would distinguish in that steep, unusual\nperspective, windows, doors, street and sky signs, people and the\nminutest details, and watch the enigmatical behaviour of crowds and\nclusters upon the roofs and in the streets; then as they soared the\ndetails would shrink, the sides of streets draw together, the view\nwiden, the people cease to be significant. At the highest the effect\nwas that of a concave relief map; Bert saw the dark and crowded land\neverywhere intersected by shining waters, saw the Hudson River like a\nspear of silver, and Lower Island Sound like a shield. Even to Bert\'s\nunphilosophical mind the contrast of city below and fleet above pointed\nan opposition, the opposition of the adventurous American\'s tradition\nand character with German order and discipline. Below, the immense\nbuildings, tremendous and fine as they were, seemed like the giant trees\nof a jungle fighting for life; their picturesque magnificence was as\nplanless as the chances of crag and gorge, their casualty enhanced by\nthe smoke and confusion of still unsubdued and spreading conflagrations.\nIn the sky soared the German airships like beings in a different,\nentirely more orderly world, all oriented to the same angle of the\nhorizon, uniform in build and appearance, moving accurately with one\npurpose as a pack of wolves will move, distributed with the most precise\nand effectual co-operation.\n\nIt dawned upon Bert that hardly a third of the fleet was visible. The\nothers had gone upon errands he could not imagine, beyond the compass of\nthat great circle of earth and sky. He wondered, but there was no one to\nask. As the day wore on, about a dozen reappeared in the east with\ntheir stores replenished from the flotilla and towing a number of\ndrachenflieger. Towards afternoon the weather thickened, driving clouds\nappeared in the south-west and ran together and seemed to engender more\nclouds, and the wind came round into that quarter and blew stronger.\nTowards the evening the wind became a gale into which the now tossing\nairships had to beat.\n\nAll that day the Prince was negotiating with Washington, while his\ndetached scouts sought far and wide over the Eastern States looking for\nanything resembling an aeronautic park. A squadron of twenty airships\ndetached overnight had dropped out of the air upon Niagara and was\nholding the town and power works.\n\nMeanwhile the insurrectionary movement in the giant city grew\nuncontrollable. In spite of five great fires already involving many\nacres, and spreading steadily, New York was still not satisfied that she\nwas beaten.\n\nAt first the rebellious spirit below found vent only in isolated shouts,\nstreet-crowd speeches, and newspaper suggestions; then it found much\nmore definite expression in the appearance in the morning sunlight of\nAmerican flags at point after point above the architectural cliffs of\nthe city. It is quite possible that in many cases this spirited display\nof bunting by a city already surrendered was the outcome of the innocent\ninformality of the American mind, but it is also undeniable that in many\nit was a deliberate indication that the people \"felt wicked.\"\n\nThe German sense of correctitude was deeply shocked by this outbreak.\nThe Graf von Winterfeld immediately communicated with the mayor, and\npointed out the irregularity, and the fire look-out stations were\ninstructed in the matter. The New York police was speedily hard at\nwork, and a foolish contest in full swing between impassioned citizens\nresolved to keep the flag flying, and irritated and worried officers\ninstructed to pull it down.\n\nThe trouble became acute at last in the streets above Columbia\nUniversity. The captain of the airship watching this quarter seems to\nhave stooped to lasso and drag from its staff a flag hoisted upon Morgan\nHall. As he did so a volley of rifle and revolver shots was fired from\nthe upper windows of the huge apartment building that stands between the\nUniversity and Riverside Drive.\n\nMost of these were ineffectual, but two or three perforated\ngas-chambers, and one smashed the hand and arm of a man upon the forward\nplatform; The sentinel on the lower gallery immediately replied, and the\nmachine gun on the shield of the eagle let fly and promptly stopped\nany further shots. The airship rose and signalled the flagship and City\nHall, police and militiamen were directed at once to the spot, and this\nparticular incident closed.\n\nBut hard upon that came the desperate attempt of a party of young\nclubmen from New York, who, inspired by patriotic and adventurous\nimaginations, slipped off in half a dozen motor-cars to Beacon Hill, and\nset to work with remarkable vigour to improvise a fort about the Doan\nswivel gun that had been placed there. They found it still in the hands\nof the disgusted gunners, who had been ordered to cease fire at the\ncapitulation, and it was easy to infect these men with their own spirit.\nThey declared their gun hadn\'t had half a chance, and were burning to\nshow what it could do. Directed by the newcomers, they made a trench\nand bank about the mounting of the piece, and constructed flimsy\nshelter-pits of corrugated iron.\n\nThey were actually loading the gun when they were observed by the\nairship Preussen and the shell they succeeded in firing before the bombs\nof the latter smashed them and their crude defences to fragments, burst\nover the middle gas-chambers of the Bingen, and brought her to earth,\ndisabled, upon Staten Island. She was badly deflated, and dropped among\ntrees, over which her empty central gas-bags spread in canopies and\nfestoons. Nothing, however, had caught fire, and her men were speedily\nat work upon her repair. They behaved with a confidence that verged upon\nindiscretion. While most of them commenced patching the tears of the\nmembrane, half a dozen of them started off for the nearest road in\nsearch of a gas main, and presently found themselves prisoners in\nthe hands of a hostile crowd. Close at hand was a number of villa\nresidences, whose occupants speedily developed from an unfriendly\ncuriosity to aggression. At that time the police control of the large\npolyglot population of Staten Island had become very lax, and scarcely\na household but had its rifle or pistols and ammunition. These were\npresently produced, and after two or three misses, one of the men at\nwork was hit in the foot. Thereupon the Germans left their sewing and\nmending, took cover among the trees, and replied.\n\nThe crackling of shots speedily brought the Preussen and Kiel on the\nscene, and with a few hand grenades they made short work of every\nvilla within a mile. A number of non-combatant American men, women, and\nchildren were killed and the actual assailants driven off. For a time\nthe repairs went on in peace under the immediate protection of these\ntwo airships. Then when they returned to their quarters, an intermittent\nsniping and fighting round the stranded Bingen was resumed, and went\non all the afternoon, and merged at last in the general combat of the\nevening....\n\nAbout eight the Bingen was rushed by an armed mob, and all its defenders\nkilled after a fierce, disorderly struggle.\n\nThe difficulty of the Germans in both these cases came from the\nimpossibility of landing any efficient force or, indeed, any force at\nall from the air-fleet. The airships were quite unequal to the transport\nof any adequate landing parties; their complement of men was just\nsufficient to manoeuvre and fight them in the air. From above they could\ninflict immense damage; they could reduce any organised Government to a\ncapitulation in the briefest space, but they could not disarm, much less\ncould they occupy, the surrendered areas below. They had to trust to\nthe pressure upon the authorities below of a threat to renew the\nbombardment. It was their sole resource. No doubt, with a\nhighly organised and undamaged Government and a homogeneous and\nwell-disciplined people that would have sufficed to keep the peace. But\nthis was not the American case. Not only was the New York Government a\nweak one and insufficiently provided with police, but the destruction of\nthe City Hall--and Post-Offide and other central ganglia had hopelessly\ndisorganised the co-operation of part with part. The street cars and\nrailways had ceased; the telephone service was out of gear and only\nworked intermittently. The Germans had struck at the head, and the head\nwas conquered and stunned--only to release the body from its rule. New\nYork had become a headless monster, no longer capable of collective\nsubmission. Everywhere it lifted itself rebelliously; everywhere\nauthorities and officials left to their own imitative were joining in\nthe arming and flag-hoisting and excitement of that afternoon.\n\n6\n\nThe disintegrating truce gave place to a definite general breach with\nthe assassination of the Wetterhorn--for that is the only possible word\nfor the act--above Union Square, and not a mile away from the exemplary\nruins of City Hall. This occurred late in the afternoon, between five\nand six. By that time the weather had changed very much for the worse,\nand the operations of the airships were embarrassed by the necessity\nthey were under of keeping head on to the gusts. A series of squalls,\nwith hail and thunder, followed one another from the south by\nsouth-east, and in order to avoid these as much as possible, the\nair-fleet came low over the houses, diminishing its range of observation\nand exposing itself to a rifle attack.\n\nOvernight there had been a gun placed in Union Square. It had never been\nmounted, much less fired, and in the darkness after the surrender it was\ntaken with its supplies and put out of the way under the arches of the\ngreat Dexter building. Here late in the morning it was remarked by a\nnumber of patriotic spirits. They set to work to hoist and mount it\ninside the upper floors of the place. They made, in fact, a masked\nbattery behind the decorous office blinds, and there lay in wait as\nsimply excited as children until at last the stem of the luckless\nWetterhorn appeared, beating and rolling at quarter speed over the\nrecently reconstructed pinnacles of Tiffany\'s. Promptly that one-gun\nbattery unmasked. The airship\'s look-out man must have seen the whole\nof the tenth story of the Dexter building crumble out and smash in the\nstreet below to discover the black muzzle looking out from the shadows\nbehind. Then perhaps the shell hit him.\n\nThe gun fired two shells before the frame of the Dexter building\ncollapsed, and each shell raked the Wetterhorn from stem to stern.\nThey smashed her exhaustively. She crumpled up like a can that has been\nkicked by a heavy boot, her forepart came down in the square, and the\nrest of her length, with a great snapping and twisting of shafts and\nstays, descended, collapsing athwart Tammany Hall and the streets\ntowards Second Avenue. Her gas escaped to mix with air, and the air of\nher rent balloonette poured into her deflating gas-chambers. Then with\nan immense impact she exploded....\n\nThe Vaterland at that time was beating up to the south of City Hall\nfrom over the ruins of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the reports of the gun,\nfollowed by the first crashes of the collapsing Dexter building, brought\nKurt and, Smallways to the cabin porthole. They were in time to see the\nflash of the exploding gun, and then they were first flattened against\nthe window and then rolled head over heels across the floor of the cabin\nby the air wave of the explosion. The Vaterland bounded like a football\nsome one has kicked and when they looked out again, Union Square was\nsmall and remote and shattered, as though some cosmically vast giant had\nrolled over it. The buildings to the east of it were ablaze at a dozen\npoints, under the flaming tatters and warping skeleton of the airship,\nand all the roofs and walls were ridiculously askew and crumbling as one\nlooked. \"Gaw!\" said Bert. \"What\'s happened? Look at the people!\"\n\nBut before Kurt could produce an explanation, the shrill bells of the\nairship were ringing to quarters, and he had to go. Bert hesitated and\nstepped thoughtfully into the passage, looking back at the window as\nhe did so. He was knocked off his feet at once by the Prince, who was\nrushing headlong from his cabin to the central magazine.\n\nBert had a momentary impression of the great figure of the Prince, white\nwith rage, bristling with gigantic anger, his huge fist swinging. \"Blut\nund Eisen!\" cried the Prince, as one who swears. \"Oh! Blut und Eisen!\"\n\nSome one fell over Bert--something in the manner of falling suggested\nVon Winterfeld--and some one else paused and kicked him spitefully and\nhard. Then he was sitting up in the passage, rubbing a freshly bruised\ncheek and readjusting the bandage he still wore on his head. \"Dem that\nPrince,\" said Bert, indignant beyond measure. \"\'E \'asn\'t the menners of\na \'og!\"\n\nHe stood up, collected his wits for a minute, and then went slowly\ntowards the gangway of the little gallery. As he did so he heard noises\nsuggestive of the return of the Prince. The lot of them were coming back\nagain. He shot into his cabin like a rabbit into its burrow, just in\ntime to escape that shouting terror.\n\nHe shut the door, waited until the passage was still, then went across\nto the window and looked out. A drift of cloud made the prospect of\nthe streets and squares hazy, and the rolling of the airship swung the\npicture up and down. A few people were running to and fro, but for the\nmost part the aspect of the district was desertion. The streets seemed\nto broaden out, they became clearer, and the little dots that were\npeople larger as the Vaterland came down again. Presently she was\nswaying along above the lower end of Broadway. The dots below, Bert saw,\nwere not running now, but standing and looking up. Then suddenly they\nwere all running again.\n\nSomething had dropped from the aeroplane, something that looked small\nand flimsy. It hit the pavement near a big archway just underneath Bert.\nA little man was sprinting along the sidewalk within half a dozen yards,\nand two or three others and one woman were bolting across the roadway.\nThey were odd little figures, so very small were they about the heads,\nso very active about the elbows and legs. It was really funny to see\ntheir legs going. Foreshortened, humanity has no dignity. The little man\non the pavement jumped comically--no doubt with terror, as the bomb fell\nbeside him.\n\nThen blinding flames squirted out in all directions from the point of\nimpact, and the little man who had jumped became, for an instant, a\nflash of fire and vanished--vanished absolutely. The people running out\ninto the road took preposterous clumsy leaps, then flopped down and lay\nstill, with their torn clothes smouldering into flame. Then pieces of\nthe archway began to drop, and the lower masonry of the building to fall\nin with the rumbling sound of coals being shot into a cellar. A faint\nscreaming reached Bert, and then a crowd of people ran out into the\nstreet, one man limping and gesticulating awkwardly. He halted, and went\nback towards the building. A falling mass of brick-work hit him and sent\nhim sprawling to lie still and crumpled where he fell. Dust and black\nsmoke came pouring into the street, and were presently shot with red\nflame....\n\nIn this manner the massacre of New York began. She was the first of the\ngreat cities of the Scientific Age to suffer by the enormous powers\nand grotesque limitations of aerial warfare. She was wrecked as in the\nprevious century endless barbaric cities had been bombarded, because she\nwas at once too strong to be occupied and too undisciplined and proud to\nsurrender in order to escape destruction. Given the circumstances, the\nthing had to be done. It was impossible for the Prince to desist, and\nown himself defeated, and it was impossible to subdue the city except\nby largely destroying it. The catastrophe was the logical outcome of\nthe situation, created by the application of science to warfare. It\nwas unavoidable that great cities should be destroyed. In spite of his\nintense exasperation with his dilemma, the Prince sought to be moderate\neven in massacre. He tried to give a memorable lesson with the minimum\nwaste of life and the minimum expenditure of explosives. For that night\nhe proposed only the wrecking of Broadway. He directed the air-fleet to\nmove in column over the route of this thoroughfare, dropping bombs, the\nVaterland leading. And so our Bert Smallways became a participant in one\nof the most cold-blooded slaughters in the world\'s history, in which\nmen who were neither excited nor, except for the remotest chance of\na bullet, in any danger, poured death and destruction upon homes and\ncrowds below.\n\nHe clung to the frame of the porthole as the airship tossed and swayed,\nand stared down through the light rain that now drove before the wind,\ninto the twilight streets, watching people running out of the houses,\nwatching buildings collapse and fires begin. As the airships sailed\nalong they smashed up the city as a child will shatter its cities of\nbrick and card. Below, they left ruins and blazing conflagrations and\nheaped and scattered dead; men, women, and children mixed together as\nthough they had been no more than Moors, or Zulus, or Chinese. Lower\nNew York was soon a furnace of crimson flames, from which there was no\nescape. Cars, railways, ferries, all had ceased, and never a light lit\nthe way of the distracted fugitives in that dusky confusion but the\nlight of burning. He had glimpses of what it must mean to be down\nthere--glimpses. And it came to him suddenly as an incredible discovery,\nthat such disasters were not only possible now in this strange,\ngigantic, foreign New York, but also in London--in Bun Hill! that the\nlittle island in the silver seas was at the end of its immunity, that\nnowhere in the world any more was there a place left where a Smallways\nmight lift his head proudly and vote for war and a spirited foreign\npolicy, and go secure from such horrible things.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII. THE \"VATERLAND\" IS DISABLED\n\n1\n\nAnd then above the flames of Manhattan Island came a battle, the first\nbattle in the air. The Americans had realised the price their waiting\ngame must cost, and struck with all the strength they had, if haply they\nmight still save New York from this mad Prince of Blood and Iron, and\nfrom fire and death.\n\nThey came down upon the Germans on the wings of a great gale in\nthe twilight, amidst thunder and rain. They came from the yards of\nWashington and Philadelphia, full tilt in two squadrons, and but for one\nsentinel airship hard by Trenton, the surprise would have been complete.\n\nThe Germans, sick and weary with destruction, and half empty of\nammunition, were facing up into the weather when the news of this onset\nreached them. New York they had left behind to the south-eastward, a\ndarkened city with one hideous red scar of flames. All the airships\nrolled and staggered, bursts of hailstorm bore them down and forced\nthem to fight their way up again; the air had become bitterly cold. The\nPrince was on the point of issuing orders to drop earthward and trail\ncopper lightning chains when the news of the aeroplane attack came to\nhim. He faced his fleet in line abreast south, had the drachenflieger\nmanned and held ready to cast loose, and ordered a general ascent into\nthe freezing clearness above the wet and darkness.\n\nThe news of what was imminent came slowly to Bert\'s perceptions. He was\nstanding in the messroom at the time and the evening rations were being\nserved out. He had resumed Butteridge\'s coat and gloves, and in addition\nhe had wrapped his blanket about him. He was dipping his bread into his\nsoup and was biting off big mouthfuls. His legs were wide apart, and\nhe leant against the partition in order to steady himself amidst the\npitching and oscillation of the airship. The men about him looked tired\nand depressed; a few talked, but most were sullen and thoughtful,\nand one or two were air-sick. They all seemed to share the peculiarly\noutcast feeling that had followed the murders of the evening, a sense\nof a land beneath them, and an outraged humanity grown more hostile than\nthe Sea.\n\nThen the news hit them. A red-faced sturdy man, a man with light\neyelashes and a scar, appeared in the doorway and shouted something in\nGerman that manifestly startled every one. Bert felt the shock of the\naltered tone, though he could not understand a word that was said.\nThe announcement was followed by a pause, and then a great outcry of\nquestions and suggestions. Even the air-sick men flushed and spoke.\nFor some minutes the mess-room was Bedlam, and then, as if it were a\nconfirmation of the news, came the shrill ringing of the bells that\ncalled the men to their posts.\n\nBert with pantomime suddenness found himself alone.\n\n\"What\'s up?\" he said, though he partly guessed.\n\nHe stayed only to gulp down the remainder of his soup, and then ran\nalong the swaying passage and, clutching tightly, down the ladder to\nthe little gallery. The weather hit him like cold water squirted from a\nhose. The airship engaged in some new feat of atmospheric Jiu-Jitsu. He\ndrew his blanket closer about him, clutching with one straining hand.\nHe found himself tossing in a wet twilight, with nothing to be seen but\nmist pouring past him. Above him the airship was warm with lights and\nbusy with the movements of men going to their quarters. Then abruptly\nthe lights went out, and the Vaterland with bounds and twists and\nstrange writhings was fighting her way up the air.\n\nHe had a glimpse, as the Vaterland rolled over, of some large buildings\nburning close below them, a quivering acanthus of flames, and then he\nsaw indistinctly through the driving weather another airship wallowing\nalong like a porpoise, and also working up. Presently the clouds\nswallowed her again for a time, and then she came back to sight as a\ndark and whale-like monster, amidst streaming weather. The air was full\nof flappings and pipings, of void, gusty shouts and noises; it buffeted\nhim and confused him; ever and again his attention became rigid--a blind\nand deaf balancing and clutching.\n\n\"Wow!\"\n\nSomething fell past him out of the vast darknesses above and vanished\ninto the tumults below, going obliquely downward. It was a German\ndrachenflieger. The thing was going so fast he had but an instant\napprehension of the dark figure of the aeronaut crouched together\nclutching at his wheel. It might be a manoeuvre, but it looked like a\ncatastrophe.\n\n\"Gaw!\" said Bert.\n\n\"Pup-pup-pup\" went a gun somewhere in the mirk ahead and suddenly and\nquite horribly the Vaterland lurched, and Bert and the sentinel were\nclinging to the rail for dear life. \"Bang!\" came a vast impact out of\nthe zenith, followed by another huge roll, and all about him the tumbled\nclouds flashed red and lurid in response to flashes unseen, revealing\nimmense gulfs. The rail went right overhead, and he was hanging loose in\nthe air holding on to it.\n\nFor a time Bert\'s whole mind and being was given to clutching. \"I\'m\ngoing into the cabin,\" he said, as the airship righted again and brought\nback the gallery floor to his feet. He began to make his way cautiously\ntowards the ladder. \"Whee-wow!\" he cried as the whole gallery reared\nitself up forward, and then plunged down like a desperate horse.\n\nCrack! Bang! Bang! Bang! And then hard upon this little rattle of shots\nand bombs came, all about him, enveloping him, engulfing him,\nimmense and overwhelming, a quivering white blaze of lightning and a\nthunder-clap that was like the bursting of a world.\n\nJust for the instant before that explosion the universe seemed to be\nstanding still in a shadowless glare.\n\nIt was then he saw the American aeroplane. He saw it in the light of the\nflash as a thing altogether motionless. Even its screw appeared still,\nand its men were rigid dolls. (For it was so near he could see the men\nupon it quite distinctly.) Its stern was tilting down, and the whole\nmachine was heeling over. It was of the Colt-Coburn-Langley pattern,\nwith double up-tilted wings and the screw ahead, and the men were in\na boat-like body netted over. From this very light long body, magazine\nguns projected on either side. One thing that was strikingly odd and\nwonderful in that moment of revelation was that the left upper wing was\nburning downward with a reddish, smoky flame. But this was not the most\nwonderful thing about this apparition. The most wonderful thing was that\nit and a German airship five hundred yards below were threaded as it\nwere on the lightning flash, which turned out of its path as if to take\nthem, and, that out from the corners and projecting points of its\nhuge wings everywhere, little branching thorn-trees of lightning were\nstreaming.\n\nLike a picture Bert saw these things, a picture a little blurred by a\nthin veil of wind-torn mist.\n\nThe crash of the thunder-clap followed the flash and seemed a part of\nit, so that it is hard to say whether Bert was the rather deafened or\nblinded in that instant.\n\nAnd then darkness, utter darkness, and a heavy report and a thin small\nsound of voices that went wailing downward into the abyss below.\n\n2\n\nThere followed upon these things a long, deep swaying of the airship,\nand then Bert began a struggle to get back to his cabin. He was drenched\nand cold and terrified beyond measure, and now more than a little\nair-sick. It seemed to him that the strength had gone out of his knees\nand hands, and that his feet had become icily slippery over the metal\nthey trod upon. But that was because a thin film of ice had frozen upon\nthe gallery.\n\nHe never knew how long his ascent of the ladder back into the airship\ntook him, but in his dreams afterwards, when he recalled it, that\nexperience seemed to last for hours. Below, above, around him were\ngulfs, monstrous gulfs of howling wind and eddies of dark, whirling\nsnowflakes, and he was protected from it all by a little metal grating\nand a rail, a grating and rail that seemed madly infuriated with him,\npassionately eager to wrench him off and throw him into the tumult of\nspace.\n\nOnce he had a fancy that a bullet tore by his ear, and that the clouds\nand snowflakes were lit by a flash, but he never even turned his head to\nsee what new assailant whirled past them in the void. He wanted to get\ninto the passage! He wanted to get into the passage! He wanted to get\ninto the passage! Would the arm by which he was clinging hold out, or\nwould it give way and snap? A handful of hail smacked him in the face,\nso that for a time he was breathless and nearly insensible. Hold tight,\nBert! He renewed his efforts.\n\nHe found himself, with an enormous sense of relief and warmth, in the\npassage. The passage was behaving like a dice-box, its disposition was\nevidently to rattle him about and then throw him out again. He hung on\nwith the convulsive clutch of instinct until the passage lurched down\nahead. Then he would make a short run cabin-ward, and clutch again as\nthe fore-end rose.\n\nBehold! He was in the cabin!\n\nHe snapped-to the door, and for a time he was not a human being, he was\na case of air-sickness. He wanted to get somewhere that would fix him,\nthat he needn\'t clutch. He opened the locker and got inside among the\nloose articles, and sprawled there helplessly, with his head sometimes\nbumping one side and sometimes the other. The lid shut upon him with a\nclick. He did not care then what was happening any more. He did not care\nwho fought who, or what bullets were fired or explosions occurred. He\ndid not care if presently he was shot or smashed to pieces. He was full\nof feeble, inarticulate rage and despair. \"Foolery!\" he said, his one\nexhaustive comment on human enterprise, adventure, war, and the chapter\nof accidents that had entangled him. \"Foolery! Ugh!\" He included the\norder of the universe in that comprehensive condemnation. He wished he\nwas dead.\n\nHe saw nothing of the stars, as presently the Vaterland cleared the rush\nand confusion of the lower weather, nor of the duel she fought with two\ncircling aeroplanes, how they shot her rear-most chambers through, and\nhow she fought them off with explosive bullets and turned to run as she\ndid so.\n\nThe rush and swoop of these wonderful night birds was all lost upon him;\ntheir heroic dash and self-sacrifice. The Vaterland was rammed, and for\nsome moments she hung on the verge of destruction, and sinking swiftly,\nwith the American aeroplane entangled with her smashed propeller, and\nthe Americans trying to scramble aboard. It signified nothing to Bert.\nTo him it conveyed itself simply as vehement swaying. Foolery! When\nthe American airship dropped off at last, with most of its crew shot or\nfallen, Bert in his locker appreciated nothing but that the Vaterland\nhad taken a hideous upward leap.\n\nBut then came infinite relief, incredibly blissful relief. The rolling,\nthe pitching, the struggle ceased, ceased instantly and absolutely.\nThe Vaterland was no longer fighting the gale; her smashed and exploded\nengines throbbed no more; she was disabled and driving before the wind\nas smoothly as a balloon, a huge, windspread, tattered cloud of aerial\nwreckage.\n\nTo Bert it was no more than the end of a series of disagreeable\nsensations. He was not curious to know what had happened to the airship,\nnor what had happened to the battle. For a long time he lay waiting\napprehensively for the pitching and tossing and his qualms to return,\nand so, lying, boxed up in the locker, he presently fell asleep.\n\n3\n\nHe awoke tranquil but very stuffy, and at the same time very cold, and\nquite unable to recollect where he could be. His head ached, and his\nbreath was suffocated. He had been dreaming confusedly of Edna, and\nDesert Dervishes, and of riding bicycles in an extremely perilous manner\nthrough the upper air amidst a pyrotechnic display of crackers and\nBengal lights--to the great annoyance of a sort of composite person made\nup of the Prince and Mr. Butteridge. Then for some reason Edna and\nhe had begun to cry pitifully for each other, and he woke up with wet\neye-lashes into this ill-ventilated darkness of the locker. He would\nnever see Edna any more, never see Edna any more.\n\nHe thought he must be back in the bedroom behind the cycle shop at\nthe bottom of Bun Hill, and he was sure the vision he had had of the\ndestruction of a magnificent city, a city quite incredibly great and\nsplendid, by means of bombs, was no more than a particularly vivid\ndream.\n\n\"Grubb!\" he called, anxious to tell him.\n\nThe answering silence, and the dull resonance of the locker to his\nvoice, supplementing the stifling quality of the air, set going a new\ntrain of ideas. He lifted up his hands and feet, and met an inflexible\nresistance. He was in a coffin, he thought! He had been buried alive! He\ngave way at once to wild panic. \"\'Elp!\" he screamed. \"\'Elp!\" and drummed\nwith his feet, and kicked and struggled. \"Let me out! Let me out!\"\n\nFor some seconds he struggled with this intolerable horror, and then\nthe side of his imagined coffin gave way, and he was flying out into\ndaylight. Then he was rolling about on what seemed to be a padded floor\nwith Kurt, and being punched and sworn at lustily.\n\nHe sat up. His head bandage had become loose and got over one eye, and\nhe whipped the whole thing off. Kurt was also sitting up, a yard away\nfrom him, pink as ever, wrapped in blankets, and with an aluminium\ndiver\'s helmet over his knee, staring at him with a severe expression,\nand rubbing his downy unshaven chin. They were both on a slanting floor\nof crimson padding, and above them was an opening like a long, low\ncellar flap that Bert by an effort perceived to be the cabin door in a\nhalf-inverted condition. The whole cabin had in fact turned on its side.\n\n\"What the deuce do you mean by it, Smallways?\" said Kurt, \"jumping out\nof that locker when I was certain you had gone overboard with the rest\nof them? Where have you been?\"\n\n\"What\'s up?\" asked Bert.\n\n\"This end of the airship is up. Most other things are down.\"\n\n\"Was there a battle?\"\n\n\"There was.\"\n\n\"Who won?\"\n\n\"I haven\'t seen the papers, Smallways. We left before the finish. We got\ndisabled and unmanageable, and our colleagues--consorts I mean--were\ntoo busy most of them to trouble about us, and the wind blew us--Heaven\nknows where the wind IS blowing us. It blew us right out of action at\nthe rate of eighty miles an hour or so. Gott! what a wind that was! What\na fight! And here we are!\"\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"In the air, Smallways--in the air! When we get down on the earth again\nwe shan\'t know what to do with our legs.\"\n\n\"But what\'s below us?\"\n\n\"Canada, to the best of my knowledge--and a jolly bleak, empty,\ninhospitable country it looks.\"\n\n\"But why ain\'t we right ways up?\"\n\nKurt made no answer for a space.\n\n\"Last I remember was seeing a sort of flying-machine in a lightning\nflash,\" said Bert. \"Gaw! that was \'orrible. Guns going off! Things\nexplodin\'! Clouds and \'ail. Pitching and tossing. I got so scared and\ndesperate--and sick. You don\'t know how the fight came off?\"\n\n\"Not a bit of it. I was up with my squad in those divers\' dresses,\ninside the gas-chambers, with sheets of silk for caulking. We couldn\'t\nsee a thing outside except the lightning flashes. I never saw one\nof those American aeroplanes. Just saw the shots flicker through the\nchambers and sent off men for the tears. We caught fire a bit--not much,\nyou know. We were too wet, so the fires spluttered out before we banged.\nAnd then one of their infernal things dropped out of the air on us and\nrammed. Didn\'t you feel it?\"\n\n\"I felt everything,\" said Bert. \"I didn\'t notice any particular smash--\"\n\n\"They must have been pretty desperate if they meant it. They slashed\ndown on us like a knife; simply ripped the after gas-chambers like\ngutting herrings, crumpled up the engines and screw. Most of the engines\ndropped off as they fell off us--or we\'d have grounded--but the rest is\nsort of dangling. We just turned up our nose to the heavens and stayed\nthere. Eleven men rolled off us from various points, and poor old\nWinterfeld fell through the door of the Prince\'s cabin into the\nchart-room and broke his ankle. Also we got our electric gear shot or\ncarried away--no one knows how. That\'s the position, Smallways. We\'re\ndriving through the air like a common aerostat, at the mercy of the\nelements, almost due north--probably to the North Pole. We don\'t know\nwhat aeroplanes the Americans have, or anything at all about it.\nVery likely we have finished \'em up. One fouled us, one was struck by\nlightning, some of the men saw a third upset, apparently just for\nfun. They were going cheap anyhow. Also we\'ve lost most of our\ndrachenflieger. They just skated off into the night. No stability in\n\'em. That\'s all. We don\'t know if we\'ve won or lost. We don\'t know if\nwe\'re at war with the British Empire yet or at peace. Consequently, we\ndaren\'t get down. We don\'t know what we are up to or what we are going\nto do. Our Napoleon is alone, forward, and I suppose he\'s rearranging\nhis plans. Whether New York was our Moscow or not remains to be seen.\nWe\'ve had a high old time and murdered no end of people! War! Noble war!\nI\'m sick of it this morning. I like sitting in rooms rightway up and\nnot on slippery partitions. I\'m a civilised man. I keep thinking of old\nAlbrecht and the Barbarossa.... I feel I want a wash and kind words\nand a quiet home. When I look at you, I KNOW I want a wash. Gott!\"--he\nstifled a vehement yawn--\"What a Cockney tadpole of a ruffian you look!\"\n\n\"Can we get any grub?\" asked Bert.\n\n\"Heaven knows!\" said Kurt.\n\nHe meditated upon Bert for a time. \"So far as I can judge, Smallways,\"\nhe said, \"the Prince will probably want to throw you overboard--next\ntime he thinks of you. He certainly will if he sees you.... After all,\nyou know, you came als Ballast.... And we shall have to lighten ship\nextensively pretty soon. Unless I\'m mistaken, the Prince will wake up\npresently and start doing things with tremendous vigour.... I\'ve taken a\nfancy to you. It\'s the English strain in me. You\'re a rum little chap. I\nshan\'t like seeing you whizz down the air.... You\'d better make yourself\nuseful, Smallways. I think I shall requisition you for my squad. You\'ll\nhave to work, you know, and be infernally intelligent and all that. And\nyou\'ll have to hang about upside down a bit. Still, it\'s the best chance\nyou have. We shan\'t carry passengers much farther this trip, I fancy.\nBallast goes over-board--if we don\'t want to ground precious soon and be\ntaken prisoners of war. The Prince won\'t do that anyhow. He\'ll be game\nto the last.\"\n\n4\n\nBy means of a folding chair, which was still in its place behind the\ndoor, they got to the window and looked out in turn and contemplated\na sparsely wooded country below, with no railways nor roads, and\nonly occasional signs of habitation. Then a bugle sounded, and Kurt\ninterpreted it as a summons to food. They got through the door and\nclambered with some difficulty up the nearly vertical passage,\nholding on desperately with toes and finger-tips, to the ventilating\nperforations in its floor. The mess stewards had found their fireless\nheating arrangements intact, and there was hot cocoa for the officers\nand hot soup for the men.\n\nBert\'s sense of the queerness of this experience was so keen that\nit blotted out any fear he might have felt. Indeed, he was far more\ninterested now than afraid. He seemed to have touched down to the bottom\nof fear and abandonment overnight. He was growing accustomed to the idea\nthat he would probably be killed presently, that this strange voyage\nin the air was in all probability his death journey. No human being can\nkeep permanently afraid: fear goes at last to the back of one\'s mind,\naccepted, and shelved, and done with. He squatted over his soup, sopping\nit up with his bread, and contemplated his comrades. They were all\nrather yellow and dirty, with four-day beards, and they grouped\nthemselves in the tired, unpremeditated manner of men on a wreck. They\ntalked little. The situation perplexed them beyond any suggestion of\nideas. Three had been hurt in the pitching up of the ship during the\nfight, and one had a bandaged bullet wound. It was incredible that this\nlittle band of men had committed murder and massacre on a scale\nbeyond precedent. None of them who squatted on the sloping gas-padded\npartition, soup mug in hand, seemed really guilty of anything of the\nsort, seemed really capable of hurting a dog wantonly. They were all\nso manifestly built for homely chalets on the solid earth and carefully\ntilled fields and blond wives and cheery merrymaking. The red-faced,\nsturdy man with light eyelashes who had brought the first news of\nthe air battle to the men\'s mess had finished his soup, and with an\nexpression of maternal solicitude was readjusting the bandages of a\nyoungster whose arm had been sprained.\n\nBert was crumbling the last of his bread into the last of his soup,\neking it out as long as possible, when suddenly he became aware that\nevery one was looking at a pair of feet that were dangling across the\ndownturned open doorway. Kurt appeared and squatted across the hinge. In\nsome mysterious way he had shaved his face and smoothed down his light\ngolden hair. He looked extraordinarily cherubic. \"Der Prinz,\" he said.\n\nA second pair of boots followed, making wide and magnificent gestures in\ntheir attempts to feel the door frame. Kurt guided them to a foothold,\nand the Prince, shaved and brushed and beeswaxed and clean and big and\nterrible, slid down into position astride of the door. All the men and\nBert also stood up and saluted.\n\nThe Prince surveyed them with the gesture of a man who site a steed. The\nhead of the Kapitan appeared beside him.\n\nThen Bert had a terrible moment. The blue blaze of the Prince\'s eye\nfell upon him, the great finger pointed, a question was asked. Kurt\nintervened with explanations.\n\n\"So,\" said the Prince, and Bert was disposed of.\n\nThen the Prince addressed the men in short, heroic sentences, steadying\nhimself on the hinge with one hand and waving the other in a fine\nvariety of gesture. What he said Bert could not tell, but he perceived\nthat their demeanor changed, their backs stiffened. They began to\npunctuate the Prince\'s discourse with cries of approval. At the end\ntheir leader burst into song and all the men with him. \"Ein feste Burg\nist unser Gott,\" they chanted in deep, strong tones, with an immense\nmoral uplifting. It was glaringly inappropriate in a damaged,\nhalf-overturned, and sinking airship, which had been disabled and blown\nout of action after inflicting the cruellest bombardment in the world\'s\nhistory; but it was immensely stirring nevertheless. Bert was deeply\nmoved. He could not sing any of the words of Luther\'s great hymn, but\nhe opened his mouth and emitted loud, deep, and partially harmonious\nnotes....\n\nFar below, this deep chanting struck on the ears of a little camp of\nChristianised half-breeds who were lumbering. They were breakfasting,\nbut they rushed out cheerfully, quite prepared for the Second Advent.\nThey stared at the shattered and twisted Vaterland driving before the\ngale, amazed beyond words. In so many respects it was like their idea\nof the Second Advent, and then again in so many respects it wasn\'t. They\nstared at its passage, awe-stricken and perplexed beyond their power of\nwords. The hymn ceased. Then after a long interval a voice came out of\nheaven. \"Vat id diss blace here galled itself; vat?\"\n\nThey made no answer. Indeed they did not understand, though the question\nrepeated itself.\n\nAnd at last the monster drove away northward over a crest of pine woods\nand was no more seen. They fell into a hot and long disputation....\n\nThe hymn ended. The Prince\'s legs dangled up the passage again, and\nevery one was briskly prepared for heroic exertion and triumphant acts.\n\"Smallways!\" cried Kurt, \"come here!\"\n\n5\n\nThen Bert, under Kurt\'s direction, had his first experience of the work\nof an air-sailor.\n\nThe immediate task before the captain of the Vaterland was a very simple\none. He had to keep afloat. The wind, though it had fallen from its\nearlier violence, was still blowing strongly enough to render the\ngrounding of so clumsy a mass extremely dangerous, even if it had been\ndesirable for the Prince to land in inhabited country, and so risk\ncapture. It was necessary to keep the airship up until the wind fell and\nthen, if possible, to descend in some lonely district of the Territory\nwhere there would be a chance of repair or rescue by some searching\nconsort. In order to do this weight had to be dropped, and Kurt was\ndetailed with a dozen men to climb down among the wreckage of the\ndeflated air-chambers and cut the stuff clear, portion by portion, as\nthe airship sank. So Bert, armed with a sharp cutlass, found himself\nclambering about upon netting four thousand feet up in the air, trying\nto understand Kurt when he spoke in English and to divine him when he\nused German.\n\nIt was giddy work, but not nearly so giddy as a rather overnourished\nreader sitting in a warm room might imagine. Bert found it quite\npossible to look down and contemplate the wild sub-arctic landscape\nbelow, now devoid of any sign of habitation, a land of rocky cliffs and\ncascades and broad swirling desolate rivers, and of trees and thickets\nthat grew more stunted and scrubby as the day wore on. Here and there on\nthe hills were patches and pockets of snow. And over all this he worked,\nhacking away at the tough and slippery oiled silk and clinging stoutly\nto the netting. Presently they cleared and dropped a tangle of bent\nsteel rods and wires from the frame, and a big chunk of silk bladder.\nThat was trying. The airship flew up at once as this loose hamper\nparted. It seemed almost as though they were dropping all Canada. The\nstuff spread out in the air and floated down and hit and twisted up in a\nnasty fashion on the lip of a gorge. Bert clung like a frozen monkey to\nhis ropes and did not move a muscle for five minutes.\n\nBut there was something very exhilarating, he found, in this dangerous\nwork, and above every thing else, there was the sense of fellowship. He\nwas no longer an isolated and distrustful stranger among these others,\nhe had now a common object with them, he worked with a friendly rivalry\nto get through with his share before them. And he developed a great\nrespect and affection for Kurt, which had hitherto been only latent\nin him. Kurt with a job to direct was altogether admirable; he was\nresourceful, helpful, considerate, swift. He seemed to be everywhere.\nOne forgot his pinkness, his light cheerfulness of manner. Directly one\nhad trouble he was at hand with sound and confident advice. He was like\nan elder brother to his men.\n\nAll together they cleared three considerable chunks of wreckage, and\nthen Bert was glad to clamber up into the cabins again and give place to\na second squad. He and his companions were given hot coffee, and indeed,\neven gloved as they were, the job had been a cold one. They sat drinking\nit and regarding each other with satisfaction. One man spoke to Bert\namiably in German, and Bert nodded and smiled. Through Kurt, Bert, whose\nankles were almost frozen, succeeded in getting a pair of top-boots from\none of the disabled men.\n\nIn the afternoon the wind abated greatly, and small, infrequent\nsnowflakes came drifting by. Snow also spread more abundantly below, and\nthe only trees were clumps of pine and spruce in the lower valleys.\nKurt went with three men into the still intact gas-chambers, let out\na certain quantity of gas from them, and prepared a series of ripping\npanels for the descent. Also the residue of the bombs and explosives in\nthe magazine were thrown overboard and fell, detonating loudly, in the\nwilderness below. And about four o\'clock in the afternoon upon a wide\nand rocky plain within sight of snow-crested cliffs, the Vaterland\nripped and grounded.\n\nIt was necessarily a difficult and violent affair, for the Vaterland had\nnot been planned for the necessities of a balloon. The captain got\none panel ripped too soon and the others not soon enough. She dropped\nheavily, bounced clumsily, and smashed the hanging gallery into the\nfore-part, mortally injuring Von Winterfeld, and then came down in a\ncollapsing heap after dragging for some moments. The forward shield\nand its machine gun tumbled in upon the things below. Two men were hurt\nbadly--one got a broken leg and one was internally injured--by flying\nrods and wires, and Bert was pinned for a time under the side. When\nat last he got clear and could take a view of the situation, the great\nblack eagle that had started so splendidly from Franconia six\nevenings ago, sprawled deflated over the cabins of the airship and the\nfrost-bitten rocks of this desolate place and looked a most unfortunate\nbird--as though some one had caught it and wrung its neck and cast\nit aside. Several of the crew of the airship were standing about in\nsilence, contemplating the wreckage and the empty wilderness into which\nthey had fallen. Others were busy under the imromptu tent made by\nthe empty gas-chambers. The Prince had gone a little way off and was\nscrutinising the distant heights through his field-glass. They had\nthe appearance of old sea cliffs; here and there were small clumps of\nconifers, and in two places tall cascades. The nearer ground was strewn\nwith glaciated boulders and supported nothing but a stunted Alpine\nvegetation of compact clustering stems and stalkless flowers. No river\nwas visible, but the air was full of the rush and babble of a torrent\nclose at hand. A bleak and biting wind was blowing. Ever and again a\nsnowflake drifted past. The springless frozen earth under Bert\'s feet\nfelt strangely dead and heavy after the buoyant airship.\n\n6\n\nSo it came about that that great and powerful Prince Karl Albert was\nfor a time thrust out of the stupendous conflict he chiefly had been\ninstrumental in provoking. The chances of battle and the weather\nconspired to maroon him in Labrador, and there he raged for six long\ndays, while war and wonder swept the world. Nation rose against\nnation and air-fleet grappled air-fleet, cities blazed and men died in\nmultitudes; but in Labrador one might have dreamt that, except for a\nlittle noise of hammering, the world was at peace.\n\nThere the encampment lay; from a distance the cabins, covered over with\nthe silk of the balloon part, looked like a gipsy\'s tent on a rather\nexceptional scale, and all the available hands were busy in building\nout of the steel of the framework a mast from which the Vaterland\'s\nelectricians might hang the long conductors of the apparatus for\nwireless telegraphy that was to link the Prince to the world again.\nThere were times when it seemed they would never rig that mast. From\nthe outset the party suffered hardship. They were not too abundantly\nprovisioned, and they were put on short rations, and for all the thick\ngarments they had, they were but ill-equipped against the piercing wind\nand inhospitable violence of this wilderness. The first night was spent\nin darkness and without fires. The engines that had supplied power were\nsmashed and dropped far away to the south, and there was never a\nmatch among the company. It had been death to carry matches. All the\nexplosives had been thrown out of the magazine, and it was only towards\nmorning that the bird-faced man whose cabin Bert had taken in the\nbeginning confessed to a brace of duelling pistols and cartridges, with\nwhich a fire could be started. Afterwards the lockers of the machine gun\nwere found to contain a supply of unused ammunition.\n\nThe night was a distressing one and seemed almost interminable. Hardly\nany one slept. There were seven wounded men aboard, and Von Winterfeld\'s\nhead had been injured, and he was shivering and in delirium, struggling\nwith his attendant and shouting strange things about the burning of New\nYork. The men crept together in the mess-room in the darkling, wrapped\nin what they could find and drank cocoa from the fireless heaters and\nlistened to his cries. In the morning the Prince made them a speech\nabout Destiny, and the God of his Fathers and the pleasure and glory\nof giving one\'s life for his dynasty, and a number of similar\nconsiderations that might otherwise have been neglected in that bleak\nwilderness. The men cheered without enthusiasm, and far away a wolf\nhowled.\n\nThen they set to work, and for a week they toiled to put up a mast of\nsteel, and hang from it a gridiron of copper wires two hundred feet by\ntwelve. The theme of all that time was work, work continually, straining\nand toilsome work, and all the rest was grim hardship and evil chances,\nsave for a certain wild splendour in the sunset and sunrise in the\ntorrents and drifting weather, in the wilderness about them. They built\nand tended a ring of perpetual fires, gangs roamed for brushwood and met\nwith wolves, and the wounded men and their beds were brought out from\nthe airship cabins, and put in shelters about the fires. There old Von\nWinterfeld raved and became quiet and presently died, and three of\nthe other wounded sickened for want of good food, while their fellows\nmended. These things happened, as it were, in the wings; the central\nfacts before Bert\'s consciousness were always firstly the perpetual\ntoil, the holding and lifting, and lugging at heavy and clumsy masses,\nthe tedious filing and winding of wires, and secondly, the Prince,\nurgent and threatening whenever a man relaxed. He would stand over them,\nand point over their heads, southward into the empty sky. \"The world\nthere,\" he said in German, \"is waiting for us! Fifty Centuries come to\ntheir Consummation.\" Bert did not understand the words, but he read the\ngesture. Several times the Prince grew angry; once with a man who was\nworking slowly, once with a man who stole a comrade\'s ration. The first\nhe scolded and set to a more tedious task; the second he struck in the\nface and ill-used. He did no work himself. There was a clear space near\nthe fires in which he would walk up and down, sometimes for two hours\ntogether, with arms folded, muttering to himself of Patience and his\ndestiny. At times these mutterings broke out into rhetoric, into shouts\nand gestures that would arrest the workers; they would stare at him\nuntil they perceived that his blue eyes glared and his waving hand\naddressed itself always to the southward hills. On Sunday the work\nceased for half an hour, and the Prince preached on faith and God\'s\nfriendship for David, and afterwards they all sang: \"Ein feste Burg ist\nunser Gott.\"\n\nIn an improvised hovel lay Von Winterfeld, and all one morning he raved\nof the greatness of Germany. \"Blut und Eisen!\" he shouted, and then,\nas if in derision, \"Welt-Politik--ha, ha!\" Then he would explain\ncomplicated questions of polity to imaginary hearers, in low, wily\ntones. The other sick men kept still, listening to him. Bert\'s\ndistracted attention would be recalled by Kurt. \"Smallways, take that\nend. So!\"\n\nSlowly, tediously, the great mast was rigged and hoisted foot by foot\ninto place. The electricians had contrived a catchment pool and a wheel\nin the torrent close at hand--for the little Mulhausen dynamo with its\nturbinal volute used by the telegraphists was quite adaptable to water\ndriving, and on the sixth day in the evening the apparatus was\nin working order and the Prince was calling--weakly, indeed, but\ncalling--to his air-fleet across the empty spaces of the world. For a\ntime he called unheeded.\n\nThe effect of that evening was to linger long in Bert\'s memory. A red\nfire spluttered and blazed close by the electricians at their work, and\nred gleams xan up the vertical steel mast and threads of copper wire\ntowards the zenith. The Prince sat on a rock close by, with his chin\non his hand, waiting. Beyond and to the northward was the cairn that\ncovered Von Winterfeld, surmounted by a cross of steel, and from among\nthe tumbled rocks in the distance the eyes of a wolf gleamed redly.\nOn the other hand was the wreckage of the great airship and the men\nbivouacked about a second ruddy flare. They were all keeping very still,\nas if waiting to hear what news might presently be given them. Far away,\nacross many hundreds of miles of desolation, other wireless masts would\nbe clicking, and snapping, and waking into responsive vibration. Perhaps\nthey were not. Perhaps those throbs upon the ethers wasted themselves\nupon a regardless world. When the men spoke, they spoke in low tones.\nNow and then a bird shrieked remotely, and once a wolf howled. All these\nthings were set in the immense cold spaciousness of the wild.\n\n7\n\nBert got the news last, and chiefly in broken English, from a linguist\namong his mates. It was only far on in the night that the weary\ntelegraphist got an answer to his calls, but then the messages came\nclear and strong. And such news it was!\n\n\"I say,\" said Bert at his breakfast, amidst a great clamour, \"tell us a\nbit.\"\n\n\"All de vorlt is at vor!\" said the linguist, waving his cocoa in an\nillustrative manner, \"all de vorlt is at vor!\"\n\nBert stared southward into the dawn. It did not seem so.\n\n\"All de vorlt is at vor! They haf burn\' Berlin; they haf burn\' London;\nthey haf burn\' Hamburg and Paris. Chapan hass burn San Francisco. We haf\nmate a camp at Niagara. Dat is whad they are telling us. China has cot\ndrachenflieger and luftschiffe beyont counting. All de vorlt is at vor!\"\n\n\"Gaw!\" said Bert.\n\n\"Yess,\" said the linguist, drinking his cocoa.\n\n\"Burnt up London, \'ave they? Like we did New York?\"\n\n\"It wass a bombardment.\"\n\n\"They don\'t say anything about a place called Clapham, or Bun Hill, do\nthey?\"\n\n\"I haf heard noding,\" said the linguist.\n\nThat was all Bert could get for a time. But the excitement of all the\nmen about him was contagious, and presently he saw Kurt standing alone,\nhands behind him, and looking at one of the distant waterfalls very\nsteadfastly. He went up and saluted, soldier-fashion. \"Beg pardon,\nlieutenant,\" he said.\n\nKurt turned his face. It was unusually grave that morning. \"I was\njust thinking I would like to see that waterfall closer,\" he said. \"It\nreminds me--what do you want?\"\n\n\"I can\'t make \'ead or tail of what they\'re saying, sir. Would you mind\ntelling me the news?\"\n\n\"Damn the news,\" said Kurt. \"You\'ll get news enough before the day\'s\nout. It\'s the end of the world. They\'re sending the Graf Zeppelin for\nus. She\'ll be here by the morning, and we ought to be at Niagara--or\neternal smash--within eight and forty hours.... I want to look at that\nwaterfall. You\'d better come with me. Have you had your rations?\"\n\n\"Yessir.\"\n\n\"Very well. Come.\"\n\nAnd musing profoundly, Kurt led the way across the rocks towards the\ndistant waterfall.\n\nFor a time Bert walked behind him in the character of an escort; then as\nthey passed out of the atmosphere of the encampment, Kurt lagged for him\nto come alongside.\n\n\"We shall be back in it all in two days\' time,\" he said. \"And it\'s a\ndevil of a war to go back to. That\'s the news. The world\'s gone mad.\nOur fleet beat the Americans the night we got disabled, that\'s clear.\nWe lost eleven--eleven airships certain, and all their aeroplanes got\nsmashed. God knows how much we smashed or how many we killed. But that\nwas only the beginning. Our start\'s been like firing a magazine. Every\ncountry was hiding flying-machines. They\'re fighting in the air all over\nEurope--all over the world. The Japanese and Chinese have joined in.\nThat\'s the great fact. That\'s the supreme fact. They\'ve pounced into our\nlittle quarrels.... The Yellow Peril was a peril after all! They\'ve got\nthousands of airships. They\'re all over the world. We bombarded London\nand Paris, and now the French and English have smashed up Berlin. And\nnow Asia is at us all, and on the top of us all.... It\'s mania. China\non the top. And they don\'t know where to stop. It\'s limitless. It\'s the\nlast confusion. They\'re bombarding capitals, smashing up dockyards and\nfactories, mines and fleets.\"\n\n\"Did they do much to London, sir?\" asked Bert.\n\n\"Heaven knows....\"\n\nHe said no more for a time.\n\n\"This Labrador seems a quiet place,\" he resumed at last. \"I\'m half a\nmind to stay here. Can\'t do that. No! I\'ve got to see it through. I\'ve\ngot to see it through. You\'ve got to, too. Every one.... But why?... I\ntell you--our world\'s gone to pieces. There\'s no way out of it, no way\nback. Here we are! We\'re like mice caught in a house on fire, we\'re like\ncattle overtaken by a flood. Presently we shall be picked up, and back\nwe shall go into the fighting. We shall kill and smash again--perhaps.\nIt\'s a Chino-Japanese air-fleet this time, and the odds are against\nus. Our turns will come. What will happen to you I don\'t know, but for\nmyself, I know quite well; I shall be killed.\"\n\n\"You\'ll be all right,\" said Bert, after a queer pause.\n\n\"No!\" said Kurt, \"I\'m going to be killed. I didn\'t know it before, but\nthis morning, at dawn, I knew it--as though I\'d been told.\"\n\n\"\'Ow?\"\n\n\"I tell you I know.\"\n\n\"But \'ow COULD you know?\"\n\n\"I know.\"\n\n\"Like being told?\"\n\n\"Like being certain.\n\n\"I know,\" he repeated, and for a time they walked in silence towards the\nwaterfall.\n\nKurt, wrapped in his thoughts, walked heedlessly, and at last broke out\nagain. \"I\'ve always felt young before, Smallways, but this morning\nI feel old--old. So old! Nearer to death than old men feel. And I\'ve\nalways thought life was a lark. It isn\'t.... This sort of thing has\nalways been happening, I suppose--these things, wars and earthquakes,\nthat sweep across all the decency of life. It\'s just as though I had\nwoke up to it all for the first time. Every night since we were at New\nYork I\'ve dreamt of it.... And it\'s always been so--it\'s the way of\nlife. People are torn away from the people they care for; homes are\nsmashed, creatures full of life, and memories, and little peculiar gifts\nare scalded and smashed, and torn to pieces, and starved, and spoilt.\nLondon! Berlin! San Francisco! Think of all the human histories we ended\nin New York!... And the others go on again as though such things weren\'t\npossible. As I went on! Like animals! Just like animals.\"\n\nHe said nothing for a long time, and then he dropped out, \"The Prince is\na lunatic!\"\n\nThey came to a place where they had to climb, and then to a long peat\nlevel beside a rivulet. There a quantity of delicate little pink flowers\ncaught Bert\'s eye. \"Gaw!\" he said, and stooped to pick one. \"In a place\nlike this.\"\n\nKurt stopped and half turned. His face winced.\n\n\"I never see such a flower,\" said Bert. \"It\'s so delicate.\"\n\n\"Pick some more if you want to,\" said Kurt.\n\nBert did so, while Kurt stood and watched him.\n\n\"Funny \'ow one always wants to pick flowers,\" said Bert.\n\nKurt had nothing to add to that.\n\nThey went on again, without talking, for a long time.\n\nAt last they came to a rocky hummock, from which the view of the\nwaterfall opened out. There Kurt stopped and seated himself on a rock.\n\n\"That\'s as much as I wanted to see,\" he explained. \"It isn\'t very like,\nbut it\'s like enough.\"\n\n\"Like what?\"\n\n\"Another waterfall I knew.\"\n\nHe asked a question abruptly. \"Got a girl, Smallways?\"\n\n\"Funny thing,\" said Bert, \"those flowers, I suppose.--I was jes\'\nthinking of \'er.\"\n\n\"So was I.\"\n\n\"WHAT! Edna?\"\n\n\"No. I was thinking of MY Edna. We\'ve all got Ednas, I suppose, for our\nimaginations to play about. This was a girl. But all that\'s past for\never. It\'s hard to think I can\'t see her just for a minute--just let her\nknow I\'m thinking of her.\"\n\n\"Very likely,\" said Bert, \"you\'ll see \'er all right.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Kurt with decision, \"I KNOW.\"\n\n\"I met her,\" he went on, \"in a place like this--in the Alps--Engstlen\nAlp. There\'s a waterfall rather like this one--a broad waterfall down\ntowards Innertkirchen. That\'s why I came here this morning. We slipped\naway and had half a day together beside it. And we picked flowers. Just\nsuch flowers as you picked. The same for all I know. And gentian.\"\n\n\"I know\" said Bert, \"me and Edna--we done things like that. Flowers. And\nall that. Seems years off now.\"\n\n\"She was beautiful and daring and shy, Mein Gott! I can hardly hold\nmyself for the desire to see her and hear her voice again before I\ndie. Where is she?... Look here, Smallways, I shall write a sort of\nletter--And there\'s her portrait.\" He touched his breast pocket.\n\n\"You\'ll see \'er again all right,\" said Bert.\n\n\"No! I shall never see her again.... I don\'t understand why people\nshould meet just to be torn apart. But I know she and I will never meet\nagain. That I know as surely as that the sun will rise, and that cascade\ncome shining over the rocks after I am dead and done.... Oh! It\'s\nall foolishness and haste and violence and cruel folly, stupidity and\nblundering hate and selfish ambition--all the things that men have\ndone--all the things they will ever do. Gott! Smallways, what a muddle\nand confusion life has always been--the battles and massacres and\ndisasters, the hates and harsh acts, the murders and sweatings, the\nlynchings and cheatings. This morning I am tired of it all, as though\nI\'d just found it out for the first time. I HAVE found it out. When a\nman is tired of life, I suppose it is time for him to die. I\'ve lost\nheart, and death is over me. Death is close to me, and I know I have\ngot to end. But think of all the hopes I had only a little time ago,\nthe sense of fine beginnings!... It was all a sham. There were no\nbeginnings.... We\'re just ants in ant-hill cities, in a world that\ndoesn\'t matter; that goes on and rambles into nothingness. New York--New\nYork doesn\'t even strike me as horrible. New York was nothing but an\nant-hill kicked to pieces by a fool!\n\n\"Think of it, Smallways: there\'s war everywhere! They\'re smashing up\ntheir civilisation before they have made it. The sort of thing the\nEnglish did at Alexandria, the Japanese at Port Arthur, the French at\nCasablanca, is going on everywhere. Everywhere! Down in South America\neven they are fighting among themselves! No place is safe--no place is\nat peace. There is no place where a woman and her daughter can hide and\nbe at peace. The war comes through the air, bombs drop in the night.\nQuiet people go out in the morning, and see air-fleets passing\noverhead--dripping death--dripping death!\"\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII. A WORLD AT WAR\n\n1\n\nIt was only very slowly that Bert got hold of this idea that the\nwhole world was at war, that he formed any image at all of the crowded\ncountries south of these Arctic solitudes stricken with terror and\ndismay as these new-born aerial navies swept across their skies. He\nwas not used to thinking of the world as a whole, but as a limitless\nhinterland of happenings beyond the range of his immediate vision. War\nin his imagination was something, a source of news and emotion, that\nhappened in a restricted area, called the Seat of War. But now the whole\natmosphere was the Seat of War, and every land a cockpit. So closely had\nthe nations raced along the path of research and invention, so secret\nand yet so parallel had been their plans and acquisitions, that it was\nwithin a few hours of the launching of the first fleet in Franconia\nthat an Asiatic Armada beat its west-ward way across, high above the\nmarvelling millions in the plain of the Ganges. But the preparations\nof the Confederation of Eastern Asia had been on an altogether more\ncolossal scale than the German. \"With this step,\" said Tan Ting-siang,\n\"we overtake and pass the West. We recover the peace of the world that\nthese barbarians have destroyed.\"\n\nTheir secrecy and swiftness and inventions had far surpassed those of\nthe Germans, and where the Germans had had a hundred men at work the\nAsiatics had ten thousand. There came to their great aeronautic parks\nat Chinsi-fu and Tsingyen by the mono-rails that now laced the whole\nsurface of China a limitless supply of skilled and able workmen, workmen\nfar above the average European in industrial efficiency. The news of the\nGerman World Surprise simply quickened their efforts. At the time of the\nbombardment of New York it is doubtful if the Germans had three hundred\nairships all together in the world; the score of Asiatic fleets flying\neast and west and south must have numbered several thousand. Moreover\nthe Asiatics had a real fighting flying-machine, the Niais as they were\ncalled, a light but quite efficient weapon, infinitely superior to the\nGerman drachenflieger. Like that, it was a one-man machine, but it\nwas built very lightly of steel and cane and chemical silk, with a\ntransverse engine, and a flapping sidewing. The aeronaut carried a gun\nfiring explosive bullets loaded with oxygen, and in addition, and true\nto the best tradition of Japan, a sword. Mostly they were Japanese, and\nit is characteristic that from the first it was contemplated that the\naeronaut should be a swordsman. The wings of these flyers had bat-like\nhooks forward, by which they were to cling to their antagonist\'s\ngas-chambers while boarding him. These light flying-machines were\ncarried with the fleets, and also sent overland or by sea to the front\nwith the men. They were capable of flights of from two to five hundred\nmiles according to the wind.\n\nSo, hard upon the uprush of the first German air-fleet, these Asiatic\nswarms took to the atmosphere. Instantly every organised Government in\nthe world was frantically and vehemently building airships and whatever\napproach to a flying machine its inventors\' had discovered. There was no\ntime for diplomacy. Warnings and ultimatums were telegraphed to and fro,\nand in a few hours all the panic-fierce world was openly at war, and at\nwar in the most complicated way. For Britain and France and Italy had\ndeclared war upon Germany and outraged Swiss neutrality; India, at the\nsight of Asiatic airships, had broken into a Hindoo insurrection\nin Bengal and a Mohametan revolt hostile to this in the North-west\nProvinces--the latter spreading like wildfire from Gobi to the Gold\nCoast--and the Confederation of Eastern Asia had seized the oil wells of\nBurmha and was impartially attacking America and Germany. In a week they\nwere building airships in Damascus and Cairo and Johannesburg; Australia\nand New Zealand were frantically equipping themselves. One unique and\nterrifying aspect of this development was the swiftness with which these\nmonsters could be produced. To build an ironclad took from two to four\nyears; an airship could be put together in as many weeks. Moreover,\ncompared with even a torpedo boat, the airship was remarkably simple to\nconstruct, given the air-chamber material, the engines, the gas plant,\nand the design, it was really not more complicated and far easier than\nan ordinary wooden boat had been a hundred years before. And now from\nCape Horn to Nova Zembla, and from Canton round to Canton again, there\nwere factories and workshops and industrial resources.\n\nAnd the German airships were barely in sight of the Atlantic waters, the\nfirst Asiatic fleet was scarcely reported from Upper Burmah, before the\nfantastic fabric of credit and finance that had held the world together\neconomically for a hundred years strained and snapped. A tornado of\nrealisation swept through every stock exchange in the world; banks\nstopped payment, business shrank and ceased, factories ran on for a\nday or so by a sort of inertia, completing the orders of bankrupt and\nextinguished customers, then stopped. The New York Bert Smallways saw,\nfor all its glare of light and traffic, was in the pit of an economic\nand financial collapse unparalleled in history. The flow of the food\nsupply was already a little checked. And before the world-war had lasted\ntwo weeks--by the time, that is, that mast was rigged in Labrador--there\nwas not a city or town in the world outside China, however far from\nthe actual centres of destruction, where police and government were not\nadopting special emergency methods to deal with a want of food and a\nglut of unemployed people.\n\nThe special peculiarities of aerial warfare were of such a nature as\nto trend, once it had begun, almost inevitably towards social\ndisorganisation. The first of these peculiarities was brought home\nto the Germans in their attack upon New York; the immense power of\ndestruction an airship has over the thing below, and its relative\ninability to occupy or police or guard or garrison a surrendered\nposition. Necessarily, in the face of urban populations in a state\nof economic disorganisation and infuriated and starving, this led to\nviolent and destructive collisions, and even where the air-fleet floated\ninactive above, there would be civil conflict and passionate disorder\nbelow. Nothing comparable to this state of affairs had been known in\nthe previous history of warfare, unless we take such a case as that of\na nineteenth century warship attacking some large savage or barbaric\nsettlement, or one of those naval bombardments that disfigure the\nhistory of Great Britain in the late eighteenth century. Then, indeed,\nthere had been cruelties and destruction that faintly foreshadowed the\nhorrors of the aerial war. Moreover, before the twentieth century the\nworld had had but one experience, and that a comparatively light one,\nin the Communist insurrection of Paris, 1871, of the possibilities of a\nmodern urban population under warlike stresses.\n\nA second peculiarity of airship war as it first came to the world that\nalso made for social collapse, was the ineffectiveness of the early\nair-ships against each other. Upon anything below they could rain\nexplosives in the most deadly fashion, forts and ships and cities lay at\ntheir mercy, but unless they were prepared for a suicidal grapple they\ncould do remarkably little mischief to each other. The armament of the\nhuge German airships, big as the biggest mammoth liners afloat, was one\nmachine gun that could easily have been packed up on a couple of mules.\nIn addition, when it became evident that the air must be fought for, the\nair-sailors were provided with rifles with explosive bullets of oxygen\nor inflammable substance, but no airship at any time ever carried as\nmuch in the way of guns and armour as the smallest gunboat on the navy\nlist had been accustomed to do. Consequently, when these monsters met in\nbattle, they manoeuvred for the upper place, or grappled and fought like\njunks, throwing grenades fighting hand to hand in an entirely medieval\nfashion. The risks of a collapse and fall on either side came near to\nbalancing in every case the chances of victory. As a consequence, and\nafter their first experiences of battle, one finds a growing tendency on\nthe part of the air-fleet admirals to evade joining battle, and to seek\nrather the moral advantage of a destructive counter attack.\n\nAnd if the airships were too ineffective, the early drachenflieger were\neither too unstable, like the German, or too light, like the Japanese,\nto produce immediately decisive results. Later, it is true, the\nBrazilians launched a flying-machine of a type and scale that was\ncapable of dealing with an airship, but they built only three or four,\nthey operated only in South America, and they vanished from history\nuntraceably in the time when world-bankruptcy put a stop to all further\nengineering production on any considerable scale.\n\nThe third peculiarity of aerial warfare was that it was at once\nenormously destructive and entirely indecisive. It had this unique\nfeature, that both sides lay open to punitive attack. In all previous\nforms of war, both by land and sea, the losing side was speedily unable\nto raid its antagonist\'s territory and the communications. One fought\non a \"front,\" and behind that front the winner\'s supplies and resources,\nhis towns and factories and capital, the peace of his country, were\nsecure. If the war was a naval one, you destroyed your enemy\'s battle\nfleet and then blockaded his ports, secured his coaling stations, and\nhunted down any stray cruisers that threatened your ports of commerce.\nBut to blockade and watch a coastline is one thing, to blockade and\nwatch the whole surface of a country is another, and cruisers and\nprivateers are things that take long to make, that cannot be packed up\nand hidden and carried unostentatiously from point to point. In aerial\nwar the stronger side, even supposing it destroyed the main battle fleet\nof the weaker, had then either to patrol and watch or destroy every\npossible point at which he might produce another and perhaps a novel and\nmore deadly form of flyer. It meant darkening his air with airships. It\nmeant building them by the thousand and making aeronauts by the hundred\nthousand. A small uninitated airship could be hidden in a railway\nshed, in a village street, in a wood; a flying machine is even less\nconspicuous.\n\nAnd in the air are no streets, no channels, no point where one can\nsay of an antagonist, \"If he wants to reach my capital he must come by\nhere.\" In the air all directions lead everywhere.\n\nConsequently it was impossible to end a war by any of the established\nmethods. A, having outnumbered and overwhelmed B, hovers, a thousand\nairships strong, over his capital, threatening to bombard it unless B\nsubmits. B replies by wireless telegraphy that he is now in the act of\nbombarding the chief manufacturing city of A by means of three raider\nairships. A denounces B\'s raiders as pirates and so forth, bombards B\'s\ncapital, and sets off to hunt down B\'s airships, while B, in a state of\npassionate emotion and heroic unconquerableness, sets to work amidst his\nruins, making fresh airships and explosives for the benefit of A.\nThe war became perforce a universal guerilla war, a war inextricably\ninvolving civilians and homes and all the apparatus of social life.\n\nThese aspects of aerial fighting took the world by surprise. There had\nbeen no foresight to deduce these consequences. If there had been, the\nworld would have arranged for a Universal Peace Conference in 1900.\nBut mechanical invention had gone faster than intellectual and social\norganisation, and the world, with its silly old flags, its silly\nunmeaning tradition of nationality, its cheap newspapers and cheaper\npassions and imperialisms, its base commercial motives and habitual\ninsincerities and vulgarities, its race lies and conflicts, was taken by\nsurprise. Once the war began there was no stopping it. The flimsy fabric\nof credit that had grown with no man foreseeing, and that had held those\nhundreds of millions in an economic interdependence that no man clearly\nunderstood, dissolved in panic. Everywhere went the airships dropping\nbombs, destroying any hope of a rally, and everywhere below were\neconomic catastrophe, starving workless people, rioting, and social\ndisorder. Whatever constructive guiding intelligence there had been\namong the nations vanished in the passionate stresses of the time. Such\nnewspapers and documents and histories as survive from this period\nall tell one universal story of towns and cities with the food supply\ninterrupted and their streets congested with starving unemployed; of\ncrises in administration and states of siege, of provisional Governments\nand Councils of Defence, and, in the cases of India and Egypt,\ninsurrectionary committees taking charge of the re-arming of the\npopulation, of the making of batteries and gun-pits, of the vehement\nmanufacture of airships and flying-machines.\n\nOne sees these things in glimpses, in illuminated moments, as if through\na driving reek of clouds, going on all over the world. It was the\ndissolution of an age; it was the collapse of the civilisation that\nhad trusted to machinery, and the instruments of its destruction were\nmachines. But while the collapse of the previous great civilisation,\nthat of Rome, had been a matter of centuries, had been a thing of phase\nand phase, like the ageing and dying of a man, this, like his killing by\nrailway or motor car, was one swift, conclusive smashing and an end.\n\n2\n\nThe early battles of the aerial war were no doubt determined by attempts\nto realise the old naval maxim, to ascertain the position of the enemy\'s\nfleet and to destroy it. There was first the battle of the Bernese\nOberland, in which the Italian and French navigables in their flank\nraid upon the Franconian Park were assailed by the Swiss experimental\nsquadron, supported as the day wore on by German airships, and then\nthe encounter of the British Winterhouse-Dunn aeroplanes with three\nunfortunate Germans.\n\nThen came the Battle of North India, in which the entire Anglo-Indian\naeronautic settlement establishment fought for three days against\noverwhelming odds, and was dispersed and destroyed in detail.\n\nAnd simultaneously with the beginning of that, commenced the momentous\nstruggle of the Germans and Asiatics that is usually known as the Battle\nof Niagara because of the objective of the Asiatic attack. But it passed\ngradually into a sporadic conflict over half a continent. Such German\nairships as escaped destruction in battle descended and surrendered to\nthe Americans, and were re-manned, and in the end it became a series of\npitiless and heroic encounters between the Americans, savagely resolved\nto exterminate their enemies, and a continually reinforced army of\ninvasion from Asia quartered upon the Pacific slope and supported by\nan immense fleet. From the first the war in America was fought with\nimplacable bitterness; no quarter was asked, no prisoners were taken.\nWith ferocious and magnificent energy the Americans constructed and\nlaunched ship after ship to battle and perish against the Asiatic\nmultitudes. All other affairs were subordinate to this war, the whole\npopulation was presently living or dying for it. Presently, as I shall\ntell, the white men found in the Butteridge machine a weapon that could\nmeet and fight the flying-machines of the Asiatic swordsman.\n\nThe Asiatic invasion of America completely effaced the German-American\nconflict. It vanishes from history. At first it had seemed to promise\nquite sufficient tragedy in itself--beginning as it did in unforgettable\nmassacre. After the destruction of central New York all America had\nrisen like one man, resolved to die a thousand deaths rather than submit\nto Germany. The Germans grimly resolved upon beating the Americans into\nsubmission and, following out the plans developed by the Prince, had\nseized Niagara--in order to avail themselves of its enormous powerworks;\nexpelled all its inhabitants and made a desert of its environs as far as\nBuffalo. They had also, directly Great Britain and France declare war,\nwrecked the country upon the Canadian side for nearly ten miles inland.\nThey began to bring up men and material from the fleet off the east\ncoast, stringing out to and fro like bees getting honey. It was then\nthat the Asiatic forces appeared, and it was in their attack upon this\nGerman base at Niagara that the air-fleets of East and West first met\nand the greater issue became clear.\n\nOne conspicuous peculiarity of the early aerial fighting arose from the\nprofound secrecy with which the airships had been prepared. Each power\nhad had but the dimmest inkling of the schemes of its rivals, and even\nexperiments with its own devices were limited by the needs of secrecy.\nNone of the designers of airships and aeroplanes had known clearly what\ntheir inventions might have to fight; many had not imagined they would\nhave to fight anything whatever in the air; and had planned them only\nfor the dropping of explosives. Such had been the German idea. The only\nweapon for fighting another airship with which the Franconian fleet had\nbeen provided was the machine gun forward. Only after the fight over\nNew York were the men given short rifles with detonating bullets.\nTheoretically, the drachenflieger were to have been the fighting weapon.\nThey were declared to be aerial torpedo-boats, and the aeronaut was\nsupposed to swoop close to his antagonist and cast his bombs as he\nwhirled past. But indeed these contrivances were hopelessly unstable;\nnot one-third in any engagement succeeded in getting back to the mother\nairship. The rest were either smashed up or grounded.\n\nThe allied Chino-Japanese fleet made the same distinction as the Germans\nbetween airships and fighting machines heavier than air, but the type in\nboth cases was entirely different from the occidental models, and--it\nis eloquent of the vigour with which these great peoples took up and\nbettered the European methods of scientific research in almost every\nparticular the invention of Asiatic engineers. Chief among these, it\nis worth remarking, was Mohini K. Chatterjee, a political exile who had\nformerly served in the British-Indian aeronautic park at Lahore.\n\nThe German airship was fish-shaped, with a blunted head; the Asiatic\nairship was also fish-shaped, but not so much on the lines of a cod or\ngoby as of a ray or sole. It had a wide, flat underside, unbroken by\nwindows or any opening except along the middle line. Its cabins occupied\nits axis, with a sort of bridge deck above, and the gas-chambers gave\nthe whole affair the shape of a gipsy\'s hooped tent, except that it was\nmuch flatter. The German airship was essentially a navigable balloon\nvery much lighter than air; the Asiatic airship was very little lighter\nthan air and skimmed through it with much greater velocity if with\nconsiderably less stability. They carried fore and aft guns, the latter\nmuch the larger, throwing inflammatory shells, and in addition they had\nnests for riflemen on both the upper and the under side. Light as this\narmament was in comparison with the smallest gunboat that ever sailed,\nit was sufficient for them to outfight as well as outfly the German\nmonster airships. In action they flew to get behind or over the Germans:\nthey even dashed underneath, avoiding only passing immediately beneath\nthe magazine, and then as soon as they had crossed let fly with their\nrear gun, and sent flares or oxygen shells into the antagonist\'s\ngas-chambers.\n\nIt was not in their airships, but, as I have said, in their\nflying-machines proper, that the strength of the Asiatics lay. Next\nonly to the Butteridge machine, these were certainly the most efficient\nheavier-than-air fliers that had ever appeared. They were the invention\nof a Japanese artist, and they differed in type extremely from the\nbox-kite quality of the German drachenflieger. They had curiously\ncurved, flexible side wings, more like BENT butterfly\'s wings than\nanything else, and made of a substance like celluloid and of brightly\npainted silk, and they had a long humming-bird tail. At the forward\ncorner of the wings were hooks, rather like the claws of a bat, by which\nthe machine could catch and hang and tear at the walls of an airship\'s\ngas-chamber. The solitary rider sat between the wings above a transverse\nexplosive engine, an explosive engine that differed in no essential\nparticular from those in use in the light motor bicycles of the period.\nBelow was a single large wheel. The rider sat astride of a saddle, as in\nthe Butteridge machine, and he carried a large double-edged two-handed\nsword, in addition to his explosive-bullet firing rifle.\n\n3\n\nOne sets down these particulars and compares the points of the American\nand German pattern of aeroplane and navigable, but none of these facts\nwere clearly known to any of those who fought in this monstrously\nconfused battle above the American great lakes.\n\nEach side went into action against it knew not what, under novel\nconditions and with apparatus that even without hostile attacks was\ncapable of producing the most disconcerting surprises. Schemes of\naction, attempts at collective manoeuvring necessarily went to pieces\ndirectly the fight began, just as they did in almost all the early\nironclad battles of the previous century. Each captain then had to fall\nback upon individual action and his own devices; one would see triumph\nin what another read as a cue for flight and despair. It is as true of\nthe Battle of Niagara as of the Battle of Lissa that it was not a battle\nbut a bundle of \"battlettes\"!\n\nTo such a spectator as Bert it presented itself as a series of\nincidents, some immense, some trivial, but collectively incoherent. He\nnever had a sense of any plain issue joined, of any point struggled\nfor and won or lost. He saw tremendous things happen and in the end his\nworld darkened to disaster and ruin.\n\nHe saw the battle from the ground, from Prospect Park and from Goat\nIsland, whither he fled.\n\nBut the manner in which he came to be on the ground needs explaining.\n\nThe Prince had resumed command of his fleet through wireless telegraphy\nlong before the Zeppelin had located his encampment in Labrador. By his\ndirection the German air-fleet, whose advance scouts had been in contact\nwith the Japanese over the Rocky Mountains, had concentrated upon\nNiagara and awaited his arrival. He had rejoined his command early in\nthe morning of the twelfth, and Bert had his first prospect of the Gorge\nof Niagara while he was doing net drill outside the middle gas-chamber\nat sunrise. The Zeppelin was flying very high at the time, and far below\nhe saw the water in the gorge marbled with froth and then away to the\nwest the great crescent of the Canadian Fall shining, flickering and\nfoaming in the level sunlight and sending up a deep, incessant thudding\nrumble to the sky. The air-fleet was keeping station in an enormous\ncrescent, with its horns pointing south-westward, a long array of\nshining monsters with tails rotating slowly and German ensigns now\ntrailing from their bellies aft of their Marconi pendants.\n\nNiagara city was still largely standing then, albeit its streets were\nempty of all life. Its bridges were intact; its hotels and restaurants\nstill flying flags and inviting sky signs; its power-stations running.\nBut about it the country on both sides of the gorge might have been\nswept by a colossal broom. Everything that could possibly give cover\nto an attack upon the German position at Niagara had been levelled as\nruthlessly as machinery and explosives could contrive; houses blown up\nand burnt, woods burnt, fences and crops destroyed. The mono-rails had\nbeen torn up, and the roads in particular cleared of all possibility of\nconcealment or shelter. Seen from above, the effect of this wreckage was\ngrotesque. Young woods had been destroyed whole-sale by dragging wires,\nand the spoilt saplings, smashed or uprooted, lay in swathes like corn\nafter the sickle. Houses had an appearance of being flattened down by\nthe pressure of a gigantic finger. Much burning was still going on, and\nlarge areas had been reduced to patches of smouldering and sometimes\nstill glowing blackness.\n\nHere and there lay the debris of belated fugitives, carts, and dead\nbodies of horses and men; and where houses had had water-supplies there\nwere pools of water and running springs from the ruptured pipes. In\nunscorched fields horses and cattle still fed peacefully. Beyond this\ndesolated area the countryside was still standing, but almost all the\npeople had fled. Buffalo was on fire to an enormous extent, and there\nwere no signs of any efforts to grapple with the flames. Niagara city\nitself was being rapidly converted to the needs of a military depot.\nA large number of skilled engineers had already been brought from the\nfleet and were busily at work adapting the exterior industrial apparatus\nof the place to the purposes of an aeronautic park. They had made a\ngas recharging station at the corner of the American Fall above the\nfunicular railway, and they were, opening up a much larger area to\nthe south for the same purpose. Over the power-houses and hotels and\nsuchlike prominent or important points the German flag was flying.\n\nThe Zeppelin circled slowly over this scene twice while the Prince\nsurveyed it from the swinging gallery; it then rose towards the centre\nof the crescent and transferred the Prince and his suite, Kurt included,\nto the Hohenzollern, which had been chosen as the flagship during the\nimpending battle. They were swung up on a small cable from the forward\ngallery, and the men of the Zeppelin manned the outer netting as the\nPrince and his staff left them. The Zeppelin then came about, circled\ndown and grounded in Prospect Park, in order to land the wounded and\ntake aboard explosives; for she had come to Labrador with her magazines\nempty, it being uncertain what weight she might need to carry. She\nalso replenished the hydrogen in one of her forward chambers which had\nleaked.\n\nBert was detailed as a bearer and helped carry the wounded one by one\ninto the nearest of the large hotels that faced the Canadian shore. The\nhotel was quite empty except that there were two trained American nurses\nand a negro porter, and three or four Germans awaiting them. Bert went\nwith the Zeppelin\'s doctor into the main street of the place, and they\nbroke into a drug shop and obtained various things of which they stood\nin need. As they returned they found an officer and two men making a\nrough inventory of the available material in the various stores. Except\nfor them the wide, main street of the town was quite deserted, the\npeople had been given three hours to clear out, and everybody,\nit seemed, had done so. At one corner a dead man lay against the\nwall--shot. Two or three dogs were visible up the empty vista, but\ntowards its river end the passage of a string of mono-rail cars broke\nthe stillness and the silence. They were loaded with hose, and were\npassing to the trainful of workers who were converting Prospect Park\ninto an airship dock.\n\nBert pushed a case of medicine balanced on a bicycle taken from an\nadjacent shop, to the hotel, and then he was sent to load bombs into the\nZeppelin magazine, a duty that called for elaborate care. From this job\nhe was presently called off by the captain of the Zeppelin, who sent\nhim with a note to the officer in charge of the Anglo-American Power\nCompany, for the field telephone had still to be adjusted. Bert received\nhis instructions in German, whose meaning he guessed, and saluted and\ntook the note, not caring to betray his ignorance of the language. He\nstarted off with a bright air of knowing his way and turned a corner or\nso, and was only beginning to suspect that he did not know where he was\ngoing when his attention was recalled to the sky by the report of a gun\nfrom the Hohenzollern and celestial cheering.\n\nHe looked up and found the view obstructed by the houses on either side\nof the street. He hesitated, and then curiosity took him back towards\nthe bank of the river. Here his view was inconvenienced by trees, and\nit was with a start that he discovered the Zeppelin, which he knew had\nstill a quarter of her magazines to fill, was rising over Goat Island.\nShe had not waited for her complement of ammunition. It occurred to him\nthat he was left behind. He ducked back among the trees and bushes until\nhe felt secure from any after-thought on the part of the Zeppelin\'s\ncaptain. Then his curiosity to see what the German air-fleet faced\novercame him, and drew him at last halfway across the bridge to Goat\nIsland.\n\nFrom that point he had nearly a hemisphere of sky and got his first\nglimpse of the Asiatic airships low in the sky above the glittering\ntumults of the Upper Rapids.\n\nThey were far less impressive than the German ships. He could not\njudge the distance, and they flew edgeways to him, so as to conceal the\nbroader aspect of their bulk.\n\nBert stood there in the middle of the bridge, in a place that most\npeople who knew it remembered as a place populous with sightseers and\nexcursionists, and he was the only human being in sight there. Above\nhim, very high in the heavens, the contending air-fleets manoeuvred;\nbelow him the river seethed like a sluice towards the American Fall. He\nwas curiously dressed. His cheap blue serge trousers were thrust into\nGerman airship rubber boots, and on his head he wore an aeronaut\'s white\ncap that was a trifle too large for him. He thrust that back to reveal\nhis staring little Cockney face, still scarred upon the brow. \"Gaw!\" he\nwhispered.\n\nHe stared. He gesticulated. Once or twice he shouted and applauded.\n\nThen at a certain point terror seized him and he took to his heels in\nthe direction of Goat Island.\n\n4\n\nFor a time after they were in sight of each other, neither fleet\nattempted to engage. The Germans numbered sixty-seven great airships\nand they maintained the crescent formation at a height of nearly four\nthousand feet. They kept a distance of about one and a half lengths, so\nthat the horns of the crescent were nearly thirty miles apart. Closely\nin tow of the airships of the extreme squadrons on either wing were\nabout thirty drachenflieger ready manned, but these were too small and\ndistant for Bert to distinguish.\n\nAt first, only what was called the Southern fleet of the Asiatics was\nvisible to him. It consisted of forty airships, carrying all together\nnearly four hundred one-man flying-machines upon their flanks, and for\nsome time it flew slowly and at a minimum distance of perhaps a dozen\nmiles from the Germans, eastward across their front. At first Bert\ncould distinguish only the greater bulks, then he perceived the one-man\nmachines as a multitude of very small objects drifting like motes in the\nsunshine about and beneath the larger shapes.\n\nBert saw nothing then of the second fleet of the Asiatics, though\nprobably that was coming into sight of the Germans at the time, in the\nnorth-west.\n\nThe air was very still, the sky almost without a cloud, and the German\nfleet had risen to an immense height, so that the airships seemed no\nlonger of any considerable size. Both ends of their crescent showed\nplainly. As they beat southward they passed slowly between Bert and the\nsunlight, and became black outlines of themselves. The drachenflieger\nappeared as little flecks of black on either wing of this aerial Armada.\n\nThe two fleets seemed in no hurry to engage. The Asiatics went far away\ninto the east, quickening their pace and rising as they did so, and then\ntailed out into a long column and came flying back, rising towards the\nGerman left. The squadrons of the latter came about, facing this oblique\nadvance, and suddenly little flickerings and a faint crepitating sound\ntold that they had opened fire. For a time no effect was visible to\nthe watcher on the bridge. Then, like a handful of snowflakes, the\ndrachenflieger swooped to the attack, and a multitude of red specks\nwhirled up to meet them. It was to Bert\'s sense not only enormously\nremote but singularly inhuman. Not four hours since he had been on one\nof those very airships, and yet they seemed to him now not gas-bags\ncarrying men, but strange sentient creatures that moved about and did\nthings with a purpose of their own. The flight of the Asiatic and German\nflying-machines joined and dropped earthward, became like a handful\nof white and red rose petals flung from a distant window, grew larger,\nuntil Bert could see the overturned ones spinning through the air,\nand were hidden by great volumes of dark smoke that were rising in the\ndirection of Buffalo. For a time they all were hidden, then two or three\nwhite and a number of red ones rose again into the sky, like a swarm of\nbig butterflies, and circled fighting and drove away out of sight again\ntowards the east.\n\nA heavy report recalled Bert\'s eyes to the zenith, and behold, the great\ncrescent had lost its dressing and burst into a disorderly long cloud of\nairships! One had dropped halfway down the sky. It was flaming fore and\naft, and even as Bert looked it turned over and fell, spinning over and\nover itself and vanished into the smoke of Buffalo.\n\nBert\'s mouth opened and shut, and he clutched tighter on the rail of\nthe bridge. For some moments--they seemed long moments--the two fleets\nremained without any further change flying obliquely towards each other,\nand making what came to Bert\'s ears as a midget uproar. Then suddenly\nfrom either side airships began dropping out of alignment, smitten by\nmissiles he could neither see nor trace. The string of Asiatic ships\nswung round and either charged into or over (it was difficult to say\nfrom below) the shattered line of the Germans, who seemed to open out\nto give way to them. Some sort of manoeuvring began, but Bert could\nnot grasp its import. The left of the battle became a confused dance\nof airships. For some minutes up there the two crossing lines of ships\nlooked so close it seemed like a hand-to-hand scuffle in the sky. Then\nthey broke up into groups and duels. The descent of German air-ships\ntowards the lower sky increased. One of them flared down and vanished\nfar away in the north; two dropped with something twisted and crippled\nin their movements; then a group of antagonists came down from the\nzenith in an eddying conflict, two Asiatics against one German, and were\npresently joined by another, and drove away eastward all together with\nothers dropping out of the German line to join them.\n\nOne Asiatic either rammed or collided with a still more gigantic German,\nand the two went spinning to destruction together. The northern squadron\nof Asiatics came into the battle unnoted by Bert, except that the\nmultitude of ships above seemed presently increased. In a little while\nthe fight was utter confusion, drifting on the whole to the southwest\nagainst the wind. It became more and more a series of group encounters.\nHere a huge German airship flamed earthward with a dozen flat Asiatic\ncraft about her, crushing her every attempt to recover. Here another\nhung with its screw fighting off the swordsman from a swarm of\nflying-machines. Here, again, an Asiatic aflame at either end swooped\nout of the battle. His attention went from incident to incident in the\nvast clearness overhead; these conspicuous cases of destruction caught\nand held his mind; it was only very slowly that any sort of scheme\nmanifested itself between those nearer, more striking episodes.\n\nThe mass of the airships that eddied remotely above was, however,\nneither destroying nor destroyed. The majority of them seemed to\nbe going at full speed and circling upward for position, exchanging\nineffectual shots as they did so. Very little ramming was essayed after\nthe first tragic downfall of rammer and rammed, and what ever attempts\nat boarding were made were invisible to Bert. There seemed, however,\na steady attempt to isolate antagonists, to cut them off from their\nfellows and bear them down, causing a perpetual sailing back and\ninterlacing of these shoaling bulks. The greater numbers of the Asiatics\nand their swifter heeling movements gave them the effect of persistently\nattacking the Germans. Overhead, and evidently endeavouring to keep\nitself in touch with the works of Niagara, a body of German airships\ndrew itself together into a compact phalanx, and the Asiatics became\nmore and more intent upon breaking this up. He was grotesquely reminded\nof fish in a fish-pond struggling for crumbs. He could see puny puffs of\nsmoke and the flash of bombs, but never a sound came down to him....\n\nA flapping shadow passed for a moment between Bert and the sun and was\nfollowed by another. A whirring of engines, click, clock, clitter clock,\nsmote upon his ears. Instantly he forgot the zenith.\n\nPerhaps a hundred yards above the water, out of the south, riding like\nValkyries swiftly through the air on the strange steeds the engineering\nof Europe had begotten upon the artistic inspiration of Japan, came\na long string of Asiatic swordsman. The wings flapped jerkily, click,\nblock, clitter clock, and the machines drove up; they spread and ceased,\nand the apparatus came soaring through the air. So they rose and fell\nand rose again. They passed so closely overhead that Bert could hear\ntheir voices calling to one another. They swooped towards Niagara city\nand landed one after another in a long line in a clear space before\nthe hotel. But he did not stay to watch them land. One yellow face had\ncraned over and looked at him, and for one enigmatical instant met his\neyes....\n\nIt was then the idea came to Bert that he was altogether too conspicuous\nin the middle of the bridge, and that he took to his heels towards Goat\nIsland. Thence, dodging about among the trees, with perhaps an excessive\nself-consciousness, he watched the rest of the struggle.\n\n5\n\nWhen Bert\'s sense of security was sufficiently restored for him to watch\nthe battle again, he perceived that a brisk little fight was in\nprogress between the Asiatic aeronauts and the German engineers for the\npossession of Niagara city. It was the first time in the whole course of\nthe war that he had seen anything resembling fighting as he had studied\nit in the illustrated papers of his youth. It seemed to him almost as\nthough things were coming right. He saw men carrying rifles and taking\ncover and running briskly from point to point in a loose attacking\nformation. The first batch of aeronauts had probably been under the\nimpression that the city was deserted. They had grounded in the open\nnear Prospect Park and approached the houses towards the power-works\nbefore they were disillusioned by a sudden fire. They had scattered back\nto the cover of a bank near the water--it was too far for them to reach\ntheir machines again; they were lying and firing at the men in the\nhotels and frame-houses about the power-works.\n\nThen to their support came a second string of red flying-machines\ndriving up from the east. They rose up out of the haze above the houses\nand came round in a long curve as if surveying the position below. The\nfire of the Germans rose to a roar, and one of those soaring shapes gave\nan abrupt jerk backward and fell among the houses. The others swooped\ndown exactly like great birds upon the roof of the power-house. They\ncaught upon it, and from each sprang a nimble little figure and ran\ntowards the parapet.\n\nOther flapping bird-shapes came into this affair, but Bert had not seen\ntheir coming. A staccato of shots came over to him, reminding him of\narmy manoeuvres, of newspaper descriptions of fights, of all that was\nentirely correct in his conception of warfare. He saw quite a number of\nGermans running from the outlying houses towards the power-house. Two\nfell. One lay still, but the other wriggled and made efforts for a time.\nThe hotel that was used as a hospital, and to which he had helped carry\nthe wounded men from the Zeppelin earlier in the day, suddenly ran up\nthe Geneva flag. The town that had seemed so quiet had evidently\nbeen concealing a considerable number of Germans, and they were\nnow concentrating to hold the central power-house. He wondered what\nammunition they might have. More and more of the Asiatic flying-machines\ncame into the conflict. They had disposed of the unfortunate German\ndrachenflieger and were now aiming at the incipient aeronautic\npark,--the electric gas generators and repair stations which formed\nthe German base. Some landed, and their aeronauts took cover and became\nenergetic infantry soldiers. Others hovered above the fight, their men\never and again firing shots down at some chance exposure below. The\nfiring came in paroxysms; now there would be a watchful lull and now a\nrapid tattoo of shots, rising to a roar. Once or twice flying machines,\nas they circled warily, came right overhead, and for a time Bert gave\nhimself body and soul to cowering.\n\nEver and again a larger thunder mingled with the rattle and reminded\nhim of the grapple of airships far above, but the nearer fight held his\nattention.\n\nAbruptly something dropped from the zenith; something like a barrel or a\nhuge football.\n\nCRASH! It smashed with an immense report. It had fallen among the\ngrounded Asiatic aeroplanes that lay among the turf and flower-beds near\nthe river. They flew in scraps and fragments, turf, trees, and gravel\nleapt and fell; the aeronauts still lying along the canal bank were\nthrown about like sacks, catspaws flew across the foaming water. All the\nwindows of the hotel hospital that had been shiningly reflecting blue\nsky and airships the moment before became vast black stars. Bang!--a\nsecond followed. Bert looked up and was filled with a sense of a number\nof monstrous bodies swooping down, coming down on the whole affair like\na flight of bellying blankets, like a string of vast dish-covers. The\ncentral tangle of the battle above was circling down as if to come\ninto touch with the power-house fight. He got a new effect of airships\naltogether, as vast things coming down upon him, growing swiftly larger\nand larger and more overwhelming, until the houses over the way seemed\nsmall, the American rapids narrow, the bridge flimsy, the combatants\ninfinitesimal. As they came down they became audible as a complex of\nshootings and vast creakings and groanings and beatings and throbbings\nand shouts and shots. The fore-shortened black eagles at the fore-ends\nof the Germans had an effect of actual combat of flying feathers.\n\nSome of these fighting airships came within five hundred feet of the\nground. Bert could see men on the lower galleries of the Germans,\nfiring rifles; could see Asiatics clinging to the ropes; saw one man\nin aluminium diver\'s gear fall flashing headlong into the waters above\nGoat Island. For the first time he saw the Asiatic airships closely.\nFrom this aspect they reminded him more than anything else of colossal\nsnowshoes; they had a curious patterning in black and white, in forms\nthat reminded him of the engine-turned cover of a watch. They had no\nhanging galleries, but from little openings on the middle line peeped\nout men and the muzzles of guns. So, driving in long, descending and\nascending curves, these monsters wrestled and fought. It was like clouds\nfighting, like puddings trying to assassinate each other. They whirled\nand circled about each other, and for a time threw Goat Island and\nNiagara into a smoky twilight, through which the sunlight smote in\nshafts and beams. They spread and closed and spread and grappled and\ndrove round over the rapids, and two miles away or more into Canada,\nand back over the Falls again. A German caught fire, and the whole crowd\nbroke away from her flare and rose about her dispersing, leaving her to\ndrop towards Canada and blow up as she dropped. Then with renewed uproar\nthe others closed again. Once from the men in Niagara city came a sound\nlike an ant-hill cheering. Another German burnt, and one badly deflated\nby the prow of an antagonist, flopped out of action southward.\n\nIt became more and more evident that the Germans were getting the\nworst of the unequal fight. More and more obviously were they being\npersecuted. Less and less did they seem to fight with any object other\nthan escape. The Asiatics swept by them and above them, ripped their\nbladders, set them alight, picked off their dimly seen men in diving\nclothes, who struggled against fire and tear with fire extinguishers and\nsilk ribbons in the inner netting. They answered only with ineffectual\nshots. Thence the battle circled back over Niagara, and then suddenly\nthe Germans, as if at a preconcerted signal, broke and dispersed, going\neast, west, north, and south, in open and confused flight. The Asiatics,\nas they realised this, rose to fly above them and after them. Only\none little knot of four Germans and perhaps a dozen Asiatics remained\nfighting about the Hohenzollern and the Prince as he circled in a last\nattempt to save Niagara.\n\nRound they swooped once again over the Canadian Fall, over the waste of\nwaters eastward, until they were distant and small, and then round and\nback, hurrying, bounding, swooping towards the one gaping spectator.\n\nThe whole struggling mass approached very swiftly, growing rapidly\nlarger, and coming out black and featureless against the afternoon sun\nand above the blinding welter of the Upper Rapids. It grew like a storm\ncloud until once more it darkened the sky. The flat Asiatic airships\nkept high above the Germans and behind them, and fired unanswered\nbullets into their gas-chambers and upon their flanks--the one-man\nflying-machines hovered and alighted like a swarm of attacking bees.\nNearer they came, and nearer, filling the lower heaven. Two of the\nGermans swooped and rose again, but the Hohenzollern had suffered too\nmuch for that. She lifted weakly, turned sharply as if to get out of\nthe battle, burst into flames fore and aft, swept down to the water,\nsplashed into it obliquely, and rolled over and over and came down\nstream rolling and smashing and writhing like a thing alive, halting and\nthen coming on again, with her torn and bent propeller still beating the\nair. The bursting flames spluttered out again in clouds of steam. It was\na disaster gigantic in its dimensions. She lay across the rapids like\nan island, like tall cliffs, tall cliffs that came rolling, smoking, and\ncrumpling, and collapsing, advancing with a sort of fluctuating rapidity\nupon Bert. One Asiatic airship--it looked to Bert from below like three\nhundred yards of pavement--whirled back and circled two or three times\nover that great overthrow, and half a dozen crimson flying-machines\ndanced for a moment like great midges in the sunlight before they swept\non after their fellows. The rest of the fight had already gone over the\nisland, a wild crescendo of shots and yells and smashing uproar. It was\nhidden from Bert now by the trees of the island, and forgotten by him in\nthe nearer spectacle of the huge advance of the defeated German airship.\nSomething fell with a mighty smashing and splintering of boughs unheeded\nbehind him.\n\nIt seemed for a time that the Hohenzollern must needs break her back\nupon the Parting of the Waters, and then for a time her propeller\nflopped and frothed in the river and thrust the mass of buckling,\ncrumpled wreckage towards the American shore. Then the sweep of the\ntorrent that foamed down to the American Fall caught her, and in another\nminute the immense mass of deflating wreckage, with flames spurting out\nin three new places, had crashed against the bridge that joined Goat\nIsland and Niagara city, and forced a long arm, as it were, in a heaving\ntangle under the central span. Then the middle chambers blew up with a\nloud report, and in another moment the bridge had given way and the main\nbulk of the airship, like some grotesque cripple in rags, staggered,\nflapping and waving flambeaux to the crest of the Fall and hesitated\nthere and vanished in a desperate suicidal leap.\n\nIts detached fore-end remained jammed against that little island, Green\nIsland it used to be called, which forms the stepping-stone between the\nmainland and Goat Island\'s patch of trees.\n\nBert followed this disaster from the Parting of the Waters to the bridge\nhead. Then, regardless of cover, regardless of the Asiatic airship\nhovering like a huge house roof without walls above the Suspension\nBridge, he sprinted along towards the north and came out for the first\ntime upon that rocky point by Luna Island that looks sheer down upon\nthe American Fall. There he stood breathless amidst that eternal rush of\nsound, breathless and staring.\n\nFar below, and travelling rapidly down the gorge, whirled something like\na huge empty sack. For him it meant--what did it not mean?--the German\nair-fleet, Kurt, the Prince, Europe, all things stable and familiar,\nthe forces that had brought him, the forces that had seemed indisputably\nvictorious. And it went down the rapids like an empty sack and left the\nvisible world to Asia, to yellow people beyond Christendom, to all that\nwas terrible and strange!\n\nRemote over Canada receded the rest of that conflict and vanished beyond\nthe range of his vision....\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX. ON GOAT ISLAND\n\n1\n\nThe whack of a bullet on the rocks beside him reminded him that he was\na visible object and wearing at least portions of a German uniform. It\ndrove him into the trees again, and for a time he dodged and dropped and\nsought cover like a chick hiding among reeds from imaginary hawks.\n\n\"Beaten,\" he whispered. \"Beaten and done for... Chinese! Yellow chaps\nchasing \'em!\"\n\nAt last he came to rest in a clump of bushes near a locked-up and\ndeserted refreshment shed within view of the American side. They made\na sort of hole and harbour for him; they met completely overhead. He\nlooked across the rapids, but the firing had ceased now altogether and\neverything seemed quiet. The Asiatic aeroplane had moved from its former\nposition above the Suspension Bridge, was motionless now above Niagara\ncity, shadowing all that district about the power-house which had been\nthe scene of the land fight. The monster had an air of quiet and assured\npredominance, and from its stern it trailed, serene and ornamental, a\nlong streaming flag, the red, black, and yellow of the great alliance,\nthe Sunrise and the Dragon. Beyond, to the east, at a much higher level,\nhung a second consort, and Bert, presently gathering courage, wriggled\nout and craned his neck to find another still airship against the sunset\nin the south.\n\n\"Gaw!\" he said. \"Beaten and chased! My Gawd!\"\n\nThe fighting, it seemed at first, was quite over in Niagara city, though\na German flag was still flying from one shattered house. A white sheet\nwas hoisted above the power-house, and this remained flying all through\nthe events that followed. But presently came a sound of shots and then\nGerman soldiers running. They disappeared among the houses, and then\ncame two engineers in blue shirts and trousers hotly pursued by three\nJapanese swordsman. The foremost of the two fugitives was a shapely man,\nand ran lightly and well; the second was a sturdy little man, and rather\nfat. He ran comically in leaps and bounds, with his plump arms bent up\nby his side and his head thrown back. The pursuers ran with uniforms and\ndark thin metal and leather head-dresses. The little man stumbled, and\nBert gasped, realising a new horror in war.\n\nThe foremost swordsman won three strides on him and was near enough to\nslash at him and miss as he spurted.\n\nA dozen yards they ran, and then the swordsman slashed again, and Bert\ncould hear across the waters a little sound like the moo of an elfin cow\nas the fat little man fell forward. Slash went the swordsman and slash\nat something on the ground that tried to save itself with ineffectual\nhands. \"Oh, I carn\'t!\" cried Bert, near blubbering, and staring with\nstarting eyes.\n\nThe swordsman slashed a fourth time and went on as his fellows came up\nafter the better runner. The hindmost swordsman stopped and turned back.\nHe had perceived some movement perhaps; but at any rate he stood, and\never and again slashed at the fallen body.\n\n\"Oo-oo!\" groaned Bert at every slash, and shrank closer into the bushes\nand became very still. Presently came a sound of shots from the town,\nand then everything was quiet, everything, even the hospital.\n\nHe saw presently little figures sheathing swords come out from the\nhouses and walk to the debris of the flying-machines the bomb had\ndestroyed. Others appeared wheeling undamaged aeroplanes upon their\nwheels as men might wheel bicycles, and sprang into the saddles and\nflapped into the air. A string of three airships appeared far away\nin the east and flew towards the zenith. The one that hung low above\nNiagara city came still lower and dropped a rope ladder to pick up men\nfrom the power-house.\n\nFor a long time he watched the further happenings in Niagara city as a\nrabbit might watch a meet. He saw men going from building to building,\nto set fire to them, as he presently realised, and he heard a series\nof dull detonations from the wheel pit of the power-house. Some similar\nbusiness went on among the works on the Canadian side. Meanwhile more\nand more airships appeared, and many more flying-machines, until at last\nit seemed to him nearly a third of the Asiatic fleet had re-assembled.\nHe watched them from his bush, cramped but immovable, watched them\ngather and range themselves and signal and pick up men, until at last\nthey sailed away towards the glowing sunset, going to the great Asiatic\nrendez-vous, above the oil wells of Cleveland. They dwindled and passed\naway, leaving him alone, so far as he could tell, the only living man\nin a world of ruin and strange loneliness almost beyond describing. He\nwatched them recede and vanish. He stood gaping after them.\n\n\"Gaw!\" he said at last, like one who rouses himself from a trance.\n\nIt was far more than any personal desolation extremity that flooded his\nsoul. It seemed to him indeed that this must be the sunset of his race.\n\n2\n\nHe did not at first envisage his own plight in definite and\ncomprehensible terms. Things happened to him so much of late, his\nown efforts had counted for so little, that he had become passive and\nplanless. His last scheme had been to go round the coast of England as\na Desert Dervish giving refined entertainment to his fellow-creatures.\nFate had quashed that. Fate had seen fit to direct him to other\ndestinies, had hurried him from point to point, and dropped him at\nlast upon this little wedge of rock between the cataracts. It did\nnot instantly occur to him that now it was his turn to play. He had\na singular feeling that all must end as a dream ends, that presently\nsurely he would be back in the world of Grubb and Edna and Bun Hill,\nthat this roar, this glittering presence of incessant water, would be\ndrawn aside as a curtain is drawn aside after a holiday lantern show,\nand old familiar, customary things re-assume their sway. It would be\ninteresting to tell people how he had seen Niagara. And then Kurt\'s\nwords came into his head: \"People torn away from the people they care\nfor; homes smashed, creatures full of life and memories and peculiar\nlittle gifts--torn to pieces, starved, and spoilt.\"...\n\nHe wondered, half incredulous, if that was in deed true. It was so hard\nto realise it. Out beyond there was it possible that Tom and Jessica\nwere also in some dire extremity? that the little green-grocer\'s shop\nwas no longer standing open, with Jessica serving respectfully, warming\nTom\'s ear in sharp asides, or punctually sending out the goods?\n\nHe tried to think what day of the week it was, and found he had lost his\nreckoning. Perhaps it was Sunday. If so, were they going to church or,\nwere they hiding, perhaps in bushes? What had happened to the landlord,\nthe butcher, and to Butteridge and all those people on Dymchurch beach?\nSomething, he knew, had happened to London--a bombardment. But who had\nbombarded? Were Tom and Jessica too being chased by strange brown men\nwith long bare swords and evil eyes? He thought of various possible\naspects of affliction, but presently one phase ousted all the others.\nWere they getting much to eat? The question haunted him, obsessed him.\n\nIf one was very hungry would one eat rats?\n\nIt dawned upon him that a peculiar misery that oppressed him was not so\nmuch anxiety and patriotic sorrow as hunger. Of course he was hungry!\n\nHe reflected and turned his steps towards the little refreshment shed\nthat stood near the end of the ruined bridge. \"Ought to be somethin\'--\"\n\nHe strolled round it once or twice, and then attacked the shutters\nwith his pocket-knife, reinforced presently by a wooden stake he found\nconveniently near. At last he got a shutter to give, and tore it back\nand stuck in his head.\n\n\"Grub,\" he remarked, \"anyhow. Leastways--\"\n\nHe got at the inside fastening of the shutter and had presently this\nestablishment open for his exploration. He found several sealed bottles\nof sterilized milk, much mineral water, two tins of biscuits and a crock\nof very stale cakes, cigarettes in great quantity but very dry, some\nrather dry oranges, nuts, some tins of canned meat and fruit, and plates\nand knives and forks and glasses sufficient for several score of people.\nThere was also a zinc locker, but he was unable to negotiate the padlock\nof this.\n\n\"Shan\'t starve,\" said Bert, \"for a bit, anyhow.\" He sat on the vendor\'s\nseat and regaled himself with biscuits and milk, and felt for a moment\nquite contented.\n\n\"Quite restful,\" he muttered, munching and glancing about him\nrestlessly, \"after what I been through.\n\n\"Crikey! WOT a day! Oh! WOT a day!\"\n\nWonder took possession of him. \"Gaw!\" he cried: \"Wot a fight it\'s been!\nSmashing up the poor fellers! \'Eadlong! The airships--the fliers and\nall. I wonder what happened to the Zeppelin?... And that chap Kurt--I\nwonder what happened to \'im? \'E was a good sort of chap, was Kurt.\"\n\nSome phantom of imperial solicitude floated through his mind. \"Injia,\"\nhe said....\n\nA more practical interest arose.\n\n\"I wonder if there\'s anything to open one of these tins of corned beef?\"\n\n3\n\nAfter he had feasted, Bert lit a cigarette and sat meditative for a\ntime. \"Wonder where Grubb is?\" he said; \"I do wonder that! Wonder if any\nof \'em wonder about me?\"\n\nHe reverted to his own circumstances. \"Dessay I shall \'ave to stop on\nthis island for some time.\"\n\nHe tried to feel at his ease and secure, but presently the indefinable\nrestlessness of the social animal in solitude distressed him. He began\nto want to look over his shoulder, and, as a corrective, roused himself\nto explore the rest of the island.\n\nIt was only very slowly that he began to realise the peculiarities of\nhis position, to perceive that the breaking down of the arch between\nGreen Island and the mainland had cut him off completely from the\nworld. Indeed it was only when he came back to where the fore-end of\nthe Hohenzollern lay like a stranded ship, and was contemplating the\nshattered bridge, that this dawned upon him. Even then it came with no\nsort of shock to his mind, a fact among a number of other extraordinary\nand unmanageable facts. He stared at the shattered cabins of the\nHohenzollern and its widow\'s garment of dishevelled silk for a time,\nbut without any idea of its containing any living thing; it was all so\ntwisted and smashed and entirely upside down. Then for a while he gazed\nat the evening sky. A cloud haze was now appearing and not an airship\nwas in sight. A swallow flew by and snapped some invisible victim. \"Like\na dream,\" he repeated.\n\nThen for a time the rapids held his mind. \"Roaring. It keeps on roaring\nand splashin\' always and always. Keeps on....\"\n\nAt last his interests became personal. \"Wonder what I ought to do now?\"\n\nHe reflected. \"Not an idee,\" he said.\n\nHe was chiefly conscious that a fortnight ago he had been in Bun Hill\nwith no idea of travel in his mind, and that now he was between the\nFalls of Niagara amidst the devastation and ruins of the greatest air\nfight in the world, and that in the interval he had been across France,\nBelgium, Germany, England, Ireland, and a number of other countries.\nIt was an interesting thought and suitable for conversation, but of\nno great practical utility. \"Wonder \'ow I can get orf this?\" he said.\n\"Wonder if there is a way out? If not... rummy!\"\n\nFurther reflection decided, \"I believe I got myself in a bit of a \'ole\ncoming over that bridge....\n\n\"Any\'ow--got me out of the way of them Japanesy chaps. Wouldn\'t \'ave\ntaken \'em long to cut MY froat. No. Still--\"\n\nHe resolved to return to the point of Luna Island. For a long time he\nstood without stirring, scrutinising the Canadian shore and the wreckage\nof hotels and houses and the fallen trees of the Victoria Park, pink now\nin the light of sundown. Not a human being was perceptible in that scene\nof headlong destruction. Then he came back to the American side of\nthe island, crossed close to the crumpled aluminium wreckage of the\nHohenzollern to Green Islet, and scrutinised the hopeless breach in the\nfurther bridge and the water that boiled beneath it. Towards Buffalo\nthere was still much smoke, and near the position of the Niagara railway\nstation the houses were burning vigorously. Everything was deserted now,\neverything was still. One little abandoned thing lay on a transverse\npath between town and road, a crumpled heap of clothes with sprawling\nlimbs....\n\n\"\'Ave a look round,\" said Bert, and taking a path that ran through the\nmiddle of the island he presently discovered the wreckage of the two\nAsiatic aeroplanes that had fallen out of the struggle that ended the\nHohenzollern.\n\nWith the first he found the wreckage of an aeronaut too.\n\nThe machine had evidently dropped vertically and was badly knocked\nabout amidst a lot of smashed branches in a clump of trees. Its bent and\nbroken wings and shattered stays sprawled amidst new splintered wood,\nand its forepeak stuck into the ground. The aeronaut dangled weirdly\nhead downward among the leaves and branches some yards away, and Bert\nonly discovered him as he turned from the aeroplane. In the dusky\nevening light and stillness--for the sun had gone now and the wind\nhad altogether fallen-this inverted yellow face was anything but a\ntranquilising object to discover suddenly a couple of yards away. A\nbroken branch had run clean through the man\'s thorax, and he hung, so\nstabbed, looking limp and absurd. In his hand he still clutched, with\nthe grip of death, a short light rifle.\n\nFor some time Bert stood very still, inspecting this thing.\n\nThen he began to walk away from it, looking constantly back at it.\n\nPresently in an open glade he came to a stop.\n\n\"Gaw!\" he whispered, \"I don\' like dead bodies some\'ow! I\'d almost rather\nthat chap was alive.\"\n\nHe would not go along the path athwart which the Chinaman hung. He felt\nhe would rather not have trees round him any more, and that it would be\nmore comfortable to be quite close to the sociable splash and uproar of\nthe rapids.\n\nHe came upon the second aeroplane in a clear grassy space by the side of\nthe streaming water, and it seemed scarcely damaged at all. It looked as\nthough it had floated down into a position of rest. It lay on its side\nwith one wing in the air. There was no aeronaut near it, dead or alive.\nThere it lay abandoned, with the water lapping about its long tail.\n\nBert remained a little aloof from it for a long time, looking into\nthe gathering shadows among the trees, in the expectation of another\nChinaman alive or dead. Then very cautiously he approached the machine\nand stood regarding its widespread vans, its big steering wheel and\nempty saddle. He did not venture to touch it.\n\n\"I wish that other chap wasn\'t there,\" he said. \"I do wish \'e wasn\'t\nthere!\"\n\nHe saw a few yards away, something bobbing about in an eddy that spun\nwithin a projecting head of rock. As it went round it seemed to draw him\nunwillingly towards it....\n\nWhat could it be?\n\n\"Blow!\" said Bert. \"It\'s another of \'em.\"\n\nIt held him. He told himself that it was the other aeronaut that had\nbeen shot in the fight and fallen out of the saddle as he strove to\nland. He tried to go away, and then it occurred to him that he might get\na branch or something and push this rotating object out into the stream.\nThat would leave him with only one dead body to worry about. Perhaps he\nmight get along with one. He hesitated and then with a certain emotion\nforced himself to do this. He went towards the bushes and cut himself a\nwand and returned to the rocks and clambered out to a corner between the\neddy and the stream, By that time the sunset was over and the bats were\nabroad--and he was wet with perspiration.\n\nHe prodded the floating blue-clad thing with his wand, failed, tried\nagain successfully as it came round, and as it went out into the stream\nit turned over, the light gleamed on golden hair and--it was Kurt!\n\nIt was Kurt, white and dead and very calm. There was no mistaking him.\nThere was still plenty of light for that. The stream took him and he\nseemed to compose himself in its swift grip as one who stretches himself\nto rest. White-faced he was now, and all the colour gone out of him.\n\nA feeling of infinite distress swept over Bert as the body swept out of\nsight towards the fall. \"Kurt!\" he cried, \"Kurt! I didn\'t mean to! Kurt!\ndon\' leave me \'ere! Don\' leave me!\"\n\nLoneliness and desolation overwhelmed him. He gave way. He stood on\nthe rock in the evening light, weeping and wailing passionately like a\nchild. It was as though some link that had held him to all these things\nhad broken and gone. He was afraid like a child in a lonely room,\nshamelessly afraid.\n\nThe twilight was closing about him. The trees were full now of strange\nshadows. All the things about him became strange and unfamiliar with\nthat subtle queerness one feels oftenest in dreams. \"O God! I carn\'\nstand this,\" he said, and crept back from the rocks to the grass and\ncrouched down, and suddenly wild sorrow for the death of Kurt, Kurt the\nbrave, Kurt the kindly, came to his help and he broke from whimpering to\nweeping. He ceased to crouch; he sprawled upon the grass and clenched an\nimpotent fist.\n\n\"This war,\" he cried, \"this blarsted foolery of a war.\n\n\"O Kurt! Lieutenant Kurt!\n\n\"I done,\" he said, \"I done. I\'ve \'ad all I want, and more than I\nwant. The world\'s all rot, and there ain\'t no sense in it. The night\'s\ncoming.... If \'E comes after me--\'E can\'t come after me--\'E can\'t!...\n\n\"If \'E comes after me, I\'ll fro\' myself into the water.\"...\n\nPresently he was talking again in a low undertone.\n\n\"There ain\'t nothing to be afraid of reely. It\'s jest imagination. Poor\nold Kurt--he thought it would happen. Prevision like. \'E never gave me\nthat letter or tole me who the lady was. It\'s like what \'e said--people\ntore away from everything they belonged to--everywhere. Exactly like\nwhat \'e said.... \'Ere I am cast away--thousands of miles from Edna or\nGrubb or any of my lot--like a plant tore up by the roots.... And every\nwar\'s been like this, only I \'adn\'t the sense to understand it. Always.\nAll sorts of \'oles and corners chaps \'ave died in. And people \'adn\'t the\nsense to understand, \'adn\'t the sense to feel it and stop it. Thought\nwar was fine. My Gawd!...\n\n\"Dear old Edna. She was a fair bit of all right--she was. That time we\n\'ad a boat at Kingston....\n\n\"I bet--I\'ll see \'er again yet. Won\'t be my fault if I don\'t.\"...\n\n4\n\nSuddenly, on the very verge of this heroic resolution, Bert became\nrigid with terror. Something was creeping towards him through the\ngrass. Something was creeping and halting and creeping again towards him\nthrough the dim dark grass. The night was electrical with horror. For a\ntime everything was still. Bert ceased to breathe. It could not be. No,\nit was too small!\n\nIt advanced suddenly upon him with a rush, with a little meawling cry\nand tail erect. It rubbed its head against him and purred. It was a\ntiny, skinny little kitten.\n\n\"Gaw, Pussy! \'ow you frightened me!\" said Bert, with drops of\nperspiration on his brow.\n\n5\n\nHe sat with his back to a tree stump all that night, holding the kitten\nin his arms. His mind was tired, and he talked or thought coherently no\nlonger. Towards dawn he dozed.\n\nWhen he awoke, he was stiff but in better heart, and the kitten slept\nwarmly and reassuringly inside his jacket. And fear, he found, had gone\nfrom amidst the trees.\n\nHe stroked the kitten, and the little creature woke up to excessive\nfondness and purring. \"You want some milk,\" said Bert. \"That\'s what you\nwant. And I could do with a bit of brekker too.\"\n\nHe yawned and stood up, with the kitten on his shoulder, and stared\nabout him, recalling the circumstances of the previous day, the grey,\nimmense happenings.\n\n\"Mus\' do something,\" he said.\n\nHe turned towards the trees, and was presently contemplating the dead\naeronaut again. The kitten he held companionably against his neck.\nThe body was horrible, but not nearly so horrible as it had been at\ntwilight, and now the limbs were limper and the gun had slipped to the\nground and lay half hidden in the grass.\n\n\"I suppose we ought to bury \'im, Kitty,\" said Bert, and looked\nhelplessly at the rocky soil about him. \"We got to stay on the island\nwith \'im.\"\n\nIt was some time before he could turn away and go on towards that\nprovision shed. \"Brekker first,\" he said, \"anyhow,\" stroking the kitten\non his shoulder. She rubbed his cheek affectionately with her furry\nlittle face and presently nibbled at his ear. \"Wan\' some milk, eh?\" he\nsaid, and turned his back on the dead man as though he mattered nothing.\n\nHe was puzzled to find the door of the shed open, though he had closed\nand latched it very carefully overnight, and he found also some dirty\nplates he had not noticed before on the bench. He discovered that the\nhinges of the tin locker were unscrewed and that it could be opened. He\nhad not observed this overnight.\n\n\"Silly of me!\" said Bert. \"\'Ere I was puzzlin\' and whackin\' away at the\npadlock, never noticing.\" It had been used apparently as an ice-chest,\nbut it contained nothing now but the remains of half-dozen boiled\nchickens, some ambiguous substance that might once have been butter, and\na singularly unappetising smell. He closed the lid again carefully.\n\nHe gave the kitten some milk in a dirty plate and sat watching its busy\nlittle tongue for a time. Then he was moved to make an inventory of\nthe provisions. There were six bottles of milk unopened and one opened,\nsixty bottles of mineral water and a large stock of syrups, about two\nthousand cigarettes and upwards of a hundred cigars, nine oranges,\ntwo unopened tins of corned beef and one opened, and five large tins\nCalifornia peaches. He jotted it down on a piece of paper. \"\'Ain\'t much\nsolid food,\" he said. \"Still--A fortnight, say!\n\n\"Anything might happen in a fortnight.\"\n\nHe gave the kitten a small second helping and a scrap of beef and then\nwent down with the little creature running after him, tail erect and in\nhigh spirits, to look at the remains of the Hohenzollern.\n\nIt had shifted in the night and seemed on the whole more firmly grounded\non Green Island than before. From it his eye went to the shattered\nbridge and then across to the still desolation of Niagara city. Nothing\nmoved over there but a number of crows. They were busy with the engineer\nhe had seen cut down on the previous day. He saw no dogs, but he heard\none howling.\n\n\"We got to get out of this some\'ow, Kitty,\" he said. \"That milk won\'t\nlast forever--not at the rate you lap it.\"\n\nHe regarded the sluice-like flood before him.\n\n\"Plenty of water,\" he said. \"Won\'t be drink we shall want.\"\n\nHe decided to make a careful exploration of the island. Presently he\ncame to a locked gate labelled \"Biddle Stairs,\" and clambered over to\ndiscover a steep old wooden staircase leading down the face of the cliff\namidst a vast and increasing uproar of waters. He left the kitten above\nand descended these, and discovered with a thrill of hope a path leading\namong the rocks at the foot of the roaring downrush of the Centre Fall.\nPerhaps this was a sort of way!\n\nIt led him only to the choking and deafening experience of the Cave of\nthe Winds, and after he had spent a quarter of an hour in a partially\nstupefied condition flattened between solid rock and nearly as solid\nwaterfall, he decided that this was after all no practicable route to\nCanada and retraced his steps. As he reascended the Biddle Stairs, he\nheard what he decided at last must be a sort of echo, a sound of some\none walking about on the gravel paths above. When he got to the top, the\nplace was as solitary as before.\n\nThence he made his way, with the kitten skirmishing along beside him\nin the grass, to a staircase that led to a lump of projecting rock that\nenfiladed the huge green majesty of the Horseshoe Fall. He stood there\nfor some time in silence.\n\n\"You wouldn\'t think,\" he said at last, \"there was so much water.... This\nroarin\' and splashin\', it gets on one\'s nerves at last.... Sounds\nlike people talking.... Sounds like people going about.... Sounds like\nanything you fancy.\"\n\nHe retired up the staircase again. \"I s\'pose I shall keep on goin\' round\nthis blessed island,\" he said drearily. \"Round and round and round.\"\n\nHe found himself presently beside the less damaged Asiatic aeroplane\nagain. He stared at it and the kitten smelt it. \"Broke!\" he said.\n\nHe looked up with a convulsive start.\n\nAdvancing slowly towards him out from among the trees were two tall\ngaunt figures. They were blackened and tattered and bandaged; the\nhind-most one limped and had his head swathed in white, but the foremost\none still carried himself as a Prince should do, for all that his left\narm was in a sling and one side of his face scalded a livid crimson. He\nwas the Prince Karl Albert, the War Lord, the \"German Alexander,\" and\nthe man behind him was the bird-faced man whose cabin had once been\ntaken from him and given to Bert.\n\n6\n\nWith that apparition began a new phase of Goat Island in Bert\'s\nexperience. He ceased to be a solitary representative of humanity in a\nvast and violent and incomprehensible universe, and became once more a\nsocial creature, a man in a world of other men. For an instant these two\nwere terrible, then they seemed sweet and desirable as brothers. They\ntoo were in this scrape with him, marooned and puzzled. He wanted\nextremely to hear exactly what had happened to them. What mattered it if\none was a Prince and both were foreign soldiers, if neither perhaps had\nadequate English? His native Cockney freedom flowed too generously for\nhim to think of that, and surely the Asiatic fleets had purged all such\ntrivial differences. \"Ul-LO!\" he said; \"\'ow did you get \'ere?\"\n\n\"It is the Englishman who brought us the Butteridge machine,\" said the\nbird-faced officer in German, and then in a tone of horror, as Bert\nadvanced, \"Salute!\" and again louder, \"SALUTE!\"\n\n\"Gaw!\" said Bert, and stopped with a second comment under his breath. He\nstared and saluted awkwardly and became at once a masked defensive thing\nwith whom co-operation was impossible.\n\nFor a time these two perfected modern aristocrats stood regarding the\ndifficult problem of the Anglo-Saxon citizen, that ambiguous citizen\nwho, obeying some mysterious law in his blood, would neither drill nor\nbe a democrat. Bert was by no means a beautiful object, but in some\ninexplicable way he looked resistant. He wore his cheap suit of serge,\nnow showing many signs of wear, and its loose fit made him seem sturdier\nthan he was; above his disengaging face was a white German cap that was\naltogether too big for him, and his trousers were crumpled up his legs\nand their ends tucked into the rubber highlows of a deceased German\naeronaut. He looked an inferior, though by no means an easy inferior,\nand instinctively they hated him.\n\nThe Prince pointed to the flying-machine and said something in broken\nEnglish that Bert took for German and failed to understand. He intimated\nas much.\n\n\"Dummer Kerl!\" said the bird-faced officer from among his bandages.\n\nThe Prince pointed again with his undamaged hand. \"You verstehen dis\ndrachenflieger?\"\n\nBert began to comprehend the situation. He regarded the Asiatic machine.\nThe habits of Bun Hill returned to him. \"It\'s a foreign make,\" he said\nambiguously.\n\nThe two Germans consulted. \"You are an expert?\" said the Prince.\n\n\"We reckon to repair,\" said Bert, in the exact manner of Grubb.\n\nThe Prince sought in his vocabulary. \"Is dat,\" he said, \"goot to fly?\"\n\nBert reflected and scratched his cheek slowly. \"I got to look at it,\" he\nreplied.... \"It\'s \'ad rough usage!\"\n\nHe made a sound with his teeth he had also acquired from Grubb, put\nhis hands in his trouser pockets, and strolled back to the\nmachine. Typically Grubb chewed something, but Bert could chew only\nimaginatively. \"Three days\' work in this,\" he said, teething. For\nthe first time it dawned on him that there were possibilities in this\nmachine. It was evident that the wing that lay on the ground was badly\ndamaged. The three stays that held it rigid had snapped across a ridge\nof rock and there was also a strong possibility of the engine being\nbadly damaged. The wing hook on that side was also askew, but probably\nthat would not affect the flight. Beyond that there probably wasn\'t much\nthe matter. Bert scratched his cheek again and contemplated the broad\nsunlit waste of the Upper Rapids. \"We might make a job of this.... You\nleave it to me.\"\n\nHe surveyed it intently again, and the Prince and his officer watched\nhim. In Bun Hill Bert and Grubb had developed to a very high pitch among\nthe hiring stock a method of repair by substituting; they substituted\nbits of other machines. A machine that was too utterly and obviously\ndone for even to proffer for hire, had nevertheless still capital value.\nIt became a sort of quarry for nuts and screws and wheels, bars and\nspokes, chain-links and the like; a mine of ill-fitting \"parts\" to\nreplace the defects of machines still current. And back among the trees\nwas a second Asiatic aeroplane....\n\nThe kitten caressed Bert\'s airship boots unheeded.\n\n\"Mend dat drachenflieger,\" said the Prince.\n\n\"If I do mend it,\" said Bert, struck by a new thought, \"none of us ain\'t\nto be trusted to fly it.\"\n\n\"_I_ vill fly it,\" said the Prince.\n\n\"Very likely break your neck,\" said Bert, after a pause.\n\nThe Prince did not understand him and disregarded what he said. He\npointed his gloved finger to the machine and turned to the bird-faced\nofficer with some remark in German. The officer answered and the Prince\nresponded with a sweeping gesture towards the sky. Then he spoke--it\nseemed eloquently. Bert watched him and guessed his meaning. \"Much more\nlikely to break your neck,\" he said. \"\'Owever. \'Ere goes.\"\n\nHe began to pry about the saddle and engine of the drachenflieger in\nsearch for tools. Also he wanted some black oily stuff for his hands and\nface. For the first rule in the art of repairing, as it was known to the\nfirm of Grubb and Smallways, was to get your hands and face thoroughly\nand conclusively blackened. Also he took off his jacket and waistcoat\nand put his cap carefully to the back of his head in order to facilitate\nscratching.\n\nThe Prince and the officer seemed disposed to watch him, but he\nsucceeded in making it clear to them that this would inconvenience him\nand that he had to \"puzzle out a bit\" before he could get to work. They\nthought him over, but his shop experience had given him something of the\nauthoritative way of the expert with common men. And at last they\nwent away. Thereupon he went straight to the second aeroplane, got the\naeronaut\'s gun and ammunition and hid them in a clump of nettles close\nat hand. \"That\'s all right,\" said Bert, and then proceeded to a careful\ninspection of the debris of the wings in the trees. Then he went back\nto the first aeroplane to compare the two. The Bun Hill method was quite\npossibly practicable if there was nothing hopeless or incomprehensible\nin the engine.\n\nThe Germans returned presently to find him already generously smutty and\ntouching and testing knobs and screws and levers with an expression of\nprofound sagacity. When the bird-faced officer addressed a remark to\nhim, he waved him aside with, \"Nong comprong. Shut it! It\'s no good.\"\n\nThen he had an idea. \"Dead chap back there wants burying,\" he said,\njerking a thumb over his shoulder.\n\n7\n\nWith the appearance of these two men Bert\'s whole universe had changed\nagain. A curtain fell before the immense and terrible desolation that\nhad overwhelmed him. He was in a world of three people, a minute human\nworld that nevertheless filled his brain with eager speculations and\nschemes and cunning ideas. What were they thinking of? What did\nthey think of him? What did they mean to do? A hundred busy threads\ninterlaced in his mind as he pottered studiously over the Asiatic\naeroplane. New ideas came up like bubbles in soda water.\n\n\"Gaw!\" he said suddenly. He had just appreciated as a special aspect of\nthis irrational injustice of fate that these two men were alive and that\nKurt was dead. All the crew of the Hohenzollern were shot or burnt or\nsmashed or drowned, and these two lurking in the padded forward cabin\nhad escaped.\n\n\"I suppose \'e thinks it\'s \'is bloomin\' Star,\" he muttered, and found\nhimself uncontrollably exasperated.\n\nHe stood up, facing round to the two men. They were standing side by\nside regarding him.\n\n\"\'It\'s no good,\" he said, \"starin\' at me. You only put me out.\" And\nthen seeing they did not understand, he advanced towards them, wrench in\nhand. It occurred to him as he did so that the Prince was really a very\nbig and powerful and serene-looking person. But he said, nevertheless,\npointing through the trees, \"dead man!\"\n\nThe bird-faced man intervened with a reply in German.\n\n\"Dead man!\" said Bert to him. \"There.\"\n\nHe had great difficulty in inducing them to inspect the dead Chinaman,\nand at last led them to him. Then they made it evident that they\nproposed that he, as a common person below the rank of officer should\nhave the sole and undivided privilege of disposing of the body by\ndragging it to the water\'s edge. There was some heated gesticulation,\nand at last the bird-faced officer abased himself to help. Together they\ndragged the limp and now swollen Asiatic through the trees, and after\na rest or so--for he trailed very heavily--dumped him into the westward\nrapid. Bert returned to his expert investigation of the flying-machine\nat last with aching arms and in a state of gloomy rebellion. \"Brasted\ncheek!\" he said. \"One\'d think I was one of \'is beastly German slaves!\n\n\"Prancing beggar!\"\n\nAnd then he fell speculating what would happen when the flying-machine,\nwas repaired--if it could be repaired.\n\nThe two Germans went away again, and after some reflection Bert removed\nseveral nuts, resumed his jacket and vest, pocketed those nuts and his\ntools and hid the set of tools from the second aeroplane in the fork of\na tree. \"Right O,\" he said, as he jumped down after the last of these\nprecautions. The Prince and his companion reappeared as he returned to\nthe machine by the water\'s edge. The Prince surveyed his progress for\na time, and then went towards the Parting of the Waters and stood with\nfolded arms gazing upstream in profound thought. The bird-faced officer\ncame up to Bert, heavy with a sentence in English.\n\n\"Go,\" he said with a helping gesture, \"und eat.\"\n\nWhen Bert got to the refreshment shed, he found all the food had\nvanished except one measured ration of corned beef and three biscuits.\n\nHe regarded this with open eyes and mouth.\n\nThe kitten appeared from under the vendor\'s seat with an ingratiating\npurr. \"Of course!\" said Bert. \"Why! where\'s your milk?\"\n\nHe accumulated wrath for a moment or so, then seized the plate in one\nhand, and the biscuits in another, and went in search of the Prince,\nbreathing vile words anent \"grub\" and his intimate interior. He\napproached without saluting.\n\n\"\'Ere!\" he said fiercely. \"Whad the devil\'s this?\"\n\nAn entirely unsatisfactory altercation followed. Bert expounded the\nBun Hill theory of the relations of grub to efficiency in English,\nthe bird-faced man replied with points about nations and discipline\nin German. The Prince, having made an estimate of Bert\'s quality and\nphysique, suddenly hectored. He gripped Bert by the shoulder and shook\nhim, making his pockets rattle, shouted something to him, and flung him\nstruggling back. He hit him as though he was a German private. Bert went\nback, white and scared, but resolved by all his Cockney standards upon\none thing. He was bound in honour to \"go for\" the Prince. \"Gaw!\" he\ngasped, buttoning his jacket.\n\n\"Now,\" cried the Prince, \"Vil you go?\" and then catching the heroic\ngleam in Bert\'s eye, drew his sword.\n\nThe bird-faced officer intervened, saying something in German and\npointing skyward.\n\nFar away in the southwest appeared a Japanese airship coming fast toward\nthem. Their conflict ended at that. The Prince was first to grasp the\nsituation and lead the retreat. All three scuttled like rabbits for the\ntrees, and ran to and for cover until they found a hollow in which\nthe grass grew rank. There they all squatted within six yards of one\nanother. They sat in this place for a long time, up to their necks in\nthe grass and watching through the branches for the airship. Bert had\ndropped some of his corned beef, but he found the biscuits in his hand\nand ate them quietly. The monster came nearly overhead and then went\naway to Niagara and dropped beyond the power-works. When it was near,\nthey all kept silence, and then presently they fell into an argument\nthat was robbed perhaps of immediate explosive effect only by their\nfailure to understand one another.\n\nIt was Bert began the talking and he talked on regardless of what they\nunderstood or failed to understand. But his voice must have conveyed his\ncantankerous intentions.\n\n\"You want that machine done,\" he said first, \"you better keep your \'ands\noff me!\"\n\nThey disregarded that and he repeated it.\n\nThen he expanded his idea and the spirit of speech took hold of him.\n\"You think you got \'old of a chap you can kick and \'it like you do your\nprivate soldiers--you\'re jolly well mistaken. See? I\'ve \'ad about enough\nof you and your antics. I been thinking you over, you and your war and\nyour Empire and all the rot of it. Rot it is! It\'s you Germans made all\nthe trouble in Europe first and last. And all for nothin\'. Jest silly\nprancing! Jest because you\'ve got the uniforms and flags! \'Ere I was--I\ndidn\'t want to \'ave anything to do with you. I jest didn\'t care a \'eng\nat all about you. Then you get \'old of me--steal me practically--and\n\'ere I am, thousands of miles away from \'ome and everything, and all\nyour silly fleet smashed up to rags. And you want to go on prancin\' NOW!\nNot if \'I know it!\n\n\"Look at the mischief you done! Look at the way you smashed up New\nYork--the people you killed, the stuff you wasted. Can\'t you learn?\"\n\n\"Dummer Kerl!\" said the bird-faced man suddenly in a tone of\nconcentrated malignancy, glaring under his bandages. \"Esel!\"\n\n\"That\'s German for silly ass!--I know. But who\'s the silly ass--\'im\nor me? When I was a kid, I used to read penny dreadfuls about \'avin\nadventures and bein\' a great c\'mander and all that rot. I stowed it. But\nwhat\'s \'e got in \'is head? Rot about Napoleon, rot about Alexander, rot\nabout \'is blessed family and \'im and Gord and David and all that. Any\none who wasn\'t a dressed-up silly fool of a Prince could \'ave told all\nthis was goin\' to \'appen. There was us in Europe all at sixes and sevens\nwith our silly flags and our silly newspapers raggin\' us up against each\nother and keepin\' us apart, and there was China, solid as a cheese, with\nmillions and millions of men only wantin\' a bit of science and a bit of\nenterprise to be as good as all of us. You thought they couldn\'t get at\nyou. And then they got flying-machines. And bif!--\'ere we are. Why, when\nthey didn\'t go on making guns and armies in China, we went and poked \'em\nup until they did. They \'AD to give us this lickin\' they\'ve give us. We\nwouldn\'t be happy until they did, and as I say, \'ere we are!\"\n\nThe bird-faced officer shouted to him to be quiet, and then began a\nconversation with the Prince.\n\n\"British citizen,\" said Bert. \"You ain\'t obliged to listen, but I ain\'t\nobliged to shut up.\"\n\nAnd for some time he continued his dissertation upon Imperialism,\nmilitarism, and international politics. But their talking put him\nout, and for a time he was certainly merely repeating abusive terms,\n\"prancin\' nincompoops\" and the like, old terms and new. Then suddenly\nhe remembered his essential grievance. \"\'Owever, look \'ere--\'ere!--the\nthing I started this talk about is where\'s that food there was in that\nshed? That\'s what I want to know. Where you put it?\"\n\nHe paused. They went on talking in German. He repeated his question.\nThey disregarded him. He asked a third time in a manner insupportably\naggressive.\n\nThere fell a tense silence. For some seconds the three regarded one\nanother. The Prince eyed Bert steadfastly, and Bert quailed under his\neye. Slowly the Prince rose to his feet and the bird-faced officer\njerked up beside him. Bert remained squatting.\n\n\"Be quaiat,\" said the Prince.\n\nBert perceived this was no moment for eloquence.\n\nThe two Germans regarded him as he crouched there. Death for a moment\nseemed near.\n\nThen the Prince turned away and the two of them went towards the\nflying-machine.\n\n\"Gaw!\" whispered Bert, and then uttered under his breath one single word\nof abuse. He sat crouched together for perhaps three minutes, then\nhe sprang to his feet and went off towards the Chinese aeronaut\'s gun\nhidden among the weeds.\n\n8\n\nThere was no pretence after that moment that Bert was under the\norders of the Prince or that he was going on with the repairing of the\nflying-machine. The two Germans took possession of that and set to work\nupon it. Bert, with his new weapon went off to the neighbourhood of\nTerrapin Rock, and there sat down to examine it. It was a short rifle\nwith a big cartridge, and a nearly full magazine. He took out the\ncartridges carefully and then tried the trigger and fittings until\nhe felt sure he had the use of it. He reloaded carefully. Then he\nremembered he was hungry and went off, gun under his arm, to hunt in and\nabout the refreshment shed. He had the sense to perceive that he must\nnot show himself with the gun to the Prince and his companion. So long\nas they thought him unarmed they would leave him alone, but there was\nno knowing what the Napoleonic person might do if he saw Bert\'s weapon.\nAlso he did not go near them because he knew that within himself boiled\na reservoir of rage and fear that he wanted to shoot these two men. He\nwanted to shoot them, and he thought that to shoot them would be a quite\nhorrible thing to do. The two sides of his inconsistent civilisation\nwarred within him.\n\nNear the shed the kitten turned up again, obviously keen for milk. This\ngreatly enhanced his own angry sense of hunger. He began to talk as he\nhunted about, and presently stood still, shouting insults. He talked of\nwar and pride and Imperialism. \"Any other Prince but you would have died\nwith his men and his ship!\" he cried.\n\nThe two Germans at the machine heard his voice going ever and again\namidst the clamour of the waters. Their eyes met and they smiled\nslightly.\n\nHe was disposed for a time to sit in the refreshment shed waiting for\nthem, but then it occurred to him that so he might get them both at\nclose quarters. He strolled off presently to the point of Luna Island to\nthink the situation out.\n\nIt had seemed a comparatively simple one at first, but as he turned it\nover in his mind its possibilities increased and multiplied. Both these\nmen had swords,--had either a revolver?\n\nAlso, if he shot them both, he might never find the food!\n\nSo far he had been going about with this gun under his arm, and a sense\nof lordly security in his mind, but what if they saw the gun and decided\nto ambush him? Goat Island is nearly all cover, trees, rocks, thickets,\nand irregularities.\n\nWhy not go and murder them both now?\n\n\"I carn\'t,\" said Bert, dismissing that. \"I got to be worked up.\"\n\nBut it was a mistake to get right away from them. That suddenly became\nclear. He ought to keep them under observation, ought to \"scout\" them.\nThen he would be able to see what they were doing, whether either of\nthem had a revolver, where they had hidden the food. He would be better\nable to determine what they meant to do to him. If he didn\'t \"scout\"\nthem, presently they would begin to \"scout\" him. This seemed so\neminently reasonable that he acted upon it forthwith. He thought over\nhis costume and threw his collar and the tell-tale aeronaut\'s white cap\ninto the water far below. He turned his coat collar up to hide any gleam\nof his dirty shirt. The tools and nuts in his pockets were disposed\nto clank, but he rearranged them and wrapped some letters and his\npocket-handkerchief about them. He started off circumspectly and\nnoiselessly, listening and peering at every step. As he drew near\nhis antagonists, much grunting and creaking served to locate them. He\ndiscovered them engaged in what looked like a wrestling match with the\nAsiatic flying-machine. Their coats were off, their swords laid aside,\nthey were working magnificently. Apparently they were turning it round\nand were having a good deal of difficulty with the long tail among the\ntrees. He dropped flat at the sight of them and wriggled into a little\nhollow, and so lay watching their exertions. Ever and again, to pass the\ntime, he would cover one or other of them with his gun.\n\nHe found them quite interesting to watch, so interesting that at times\nhe came near shouting to advise them. He perceived that when they had\nthe machine turned round, they would then be in immediate want of the\nnuts and tools he carried. Then they would come after him. They would\ncertainly conclude he had them or had hidden them. Should he hide his\ngun and do a deal for food with these tools? He felt he would not be\nable to part with the gun again now he had once felt its reassuring\ncompany. The kitten turned up again and made a great fuss with him and\nlicked and bit his ear.\n\nThe sun clambered to midday, and once that morning he saw, though the\nGermans did not, an Asiatic airship very far to the south, going swiftly\neastward.\n\nAt last the flying-machine was turned and stood poised on its wheel,\nwith its hooks pointing up the Rapids. The two officers wiped their\nfaces, resumed jackets and swords, spoke and bore themselves like men\nwho congratulated themselves on a good laborious morning. Then they\nwent off briskly towards the refreshment shed, the Prince leading.\nBert became active in pursuit; but he found it impossible to stalk them\nquickly enough and silently enough to discover the hiding-place of the\nfood. He found them, when he came into sight of them again, seated with\ntheir backs against the shed, plates on knee, and a tin of corned beef\nand a plateful of biscuits between them. They seemed in fairly good\nspirits, and once the Prince laughed. At this vision of eating Bert\'s\nplans gave way. Fierce hunger carried him. He appeared before them\nsuddenly at a distance of perhaps twenty yards, gun in hand.\n\n\"\'Ands up!\" he said in a hard, ferocious voice.\n\nThe Prince hesitated, and then up went two pairs of hands. The gun had\nsurprised them both completely.\n\n\"Stand up,\" said Bert.... \"Drop that fork!\"\n\nThey obeyed again.\n\n\"What nex\'?\" said Bert to himself. \"\'Orf stage, I suppose. That way,\" he\nsaid. \"Go!\"\n\nThe Prince obeyed with remarkable alacrity. When he reached the head of\nthe clearing, he said something quickly to the bird-faced man and they\nboth, with an entire lack of dignity, RAN!\n\nBert was struck with an exasperating afterthought.\n\n\"Gord!\" he cried with infinite vexation. \"Why! I ought to \'ave took\ntheir swords! \'Ere!\"\n\nBut the Germans were already out of sight, and no doubt taking cover\namong the trees. Bert fell back upon imprecations, then he went up to\nthe shed, cursorily examined the possibility of a flank attack, put his\ngun handy, and set to work, with a convulsive listening pause before\neach mouthful on the Prince\'s plate of corned beef. He had finished that\nup and handed its gleanings to the kitten and he was falling-to on the\nsecond plateful, when the plate broke in his hand! He stared, with the\nfact slowly creeping upon him that an instant before he had heard a\ncrack among the thickets. Then he sprang to his feet, snatched up his\ngun in one hand and the tin of corned beef in the other, and fled round\nthe shed to the other side of the clearing. As he did so came a second\ncrack from the thickets, and something went phwit! by his ear.\n\nHe didn\'t stop running until he was in what seemed to him a strongly\ndefensible position near Luna Island. Then he took cover, panting, and\ncrouched expectant.\n\n\"They got a revolver after all!\" he panted....\n\n\"Wonder if they got two? If they \'ave--Gord! I\'m done!\n\n\"Where\'s the kitten? Finishin\' up that corned beef, I suppose. Little\nbeggar!\"\n\n9\n\nSo it was that war began upon Goat Island. It lasted a day and a night,\nthe longest day and the longest night in Bert\'s life. He had to lie\nclose and listen and watch. Also he had to scheme what he should do. It\nwas clear now that he had to kill these two men if he could, and that if\nthey could, they would kill him. The prize was first food and then the\nflying-machine and the doubtful privilege of trying\' to ride it. If one\nfailed, one would certainly be killed; if one succeeded, one would get\naway somewhere over there. For a time Bert tried to imagine what it\nwas like over there. His mind ran over possibilities, deserts, angry\nAmericans, Japanese, Chinese--perhaps Red Indians! (Were there still Red\nIndians?)\n\n\"Got to take what comes,\" said Bert. \"No way out of it that I can see!\"\n\nWas that voices? He realised that his attention was wandering. For a\ntime all his senses were very alert. The uproar of the Falls was very\nconfusing, and it mixed in all sorts of sounds, like feet walking, like\nvoices talking, like shouts and cries.\n\n\"Silly great catarac\',\" said Bert. \"There ain\'t no sense in it, fallin\'\nand fallin\'.\"\n\nNever mind that, now! What were the Germans doing?\n\nWould they go back to the flying-machine? They couldn\'t do anything with\nit, because he had those nuts and screws and the wrench and other tools.\nBut suppose they found the second set of tools he had hidden in a tree!\nHe had hidden the things well, of course, but they MIGHT find them.\nOne wasn\'t sure, of course--one wasn\'t sure. He tried to remember just\nexactly how he had hidden those tools. He tried to persuade himself they\nwere certainly and surely hidden, but his memory began to play antics.\nHad he really left the handle of the wrench sticking out, shining out at\nthe fork of the branch?\n\nSsh! What was that? Some one stirring in those bushes? Up went an\nexpectant muzzle. No! Where was the kitten? No! It was just imagination,\nnot even the kitten.\n\nThe Germans would certainly miss and hunt about for the tools and nuts\nand screws he carried in his pockets; that was clear. Then they would\ndecide he had them and come for him. He had only to remain still under\ncover, therefore, and he would get them. Was there any flaw in that?\nWould they take off more removable parts of the flying-machine and then\nlie up for him? No, they wouldn\'t do that, because they were two to\none; they would have no apprehension of his getting off in the\nflying-machine, and no sound reason for supposing he would approach it,\nand so they would do nothing to damage or disable it. That he decided\nwas clear. But suppose they lay up for him by the food. Well, that they\nwouldn\'t do, because they would know he had this corned beef; there was\nenough in this can to last, with moderation, several days. Of course\nthey might try to tire him out instead of attacking him--\n\nHe roused himself with a start. He had just grasped the real weakness of\nhis position. He might go to sleep!\n\nIt needed but ten minutes under the suggestion of that idea, before he\nrealised that he was going to sleep!\n\nHe rubbed his eyes and handled his gun. He had never before realised the\nintensely soporific effect of the American sun, of the American air, the\ndrowsy, sleep-compelling uproar of Niagara. Hitherto these things had on\nthe whole seemed stimulating....\n\nIf he had not eaten so much and eaten it so fast, he would not be so\nheavy. Are vegetarians always bright?...\n\nHe roused himself with a jerk again.\n\nIf he didn\'t do something, he would fall asleep, and if he fell asleep,\nit was ten to one they would find him snoring, and finish him forthwith.\nIf he sat motionless and noiseless, he would inevitably sleep. It was\nbetter, he told himself, to take even the risks of attacking than that.\nThis sleep trouble, he felt, was going to beat him, must beat him in\nthe end. They were all right; one could sleep and the other could watch.\nThat, come to think of it, was what they would always do; one would do\nanything they wanted done, the other would lie under cover near at hand,\nready to shoot. They might even trap him like that. One might act as a\ndecoy.\n\nThat set him thinking of decoys. What a fool he had been to throw his\ncap away. It would have been invaluable on a stick--especially at night.\n\nHe found himself wishing for a drink. He settled that for a time by\nputting a pebble in his mouth. And then the sleep craving returned.\n\nIt became clear to him he must attack. Like many great generals before\nhim, he found his baggage, that is to say his tin of corned beef, a\nserious impediment to mobility. At last he decided to put the beef\nloose in his pocket and abandon the tin. It was not perhaps an ideal\narrangement, but one must make sacrifices when one is campaigning. He\ncrawled perhaps ten yards, and then for a time the possibilities of the\nsituation paralysed him.\n\nThe afternoon was still. The roar of the cataract simply threw up that\nimmense stillness in relief. He was doing his best to contrive the\ndeath of two better men than himself. Also they were doing their best to\ncontrive his. What, behind this silence, were they doing.\n\nSuppose he came upon them suddenly and fired, and missed?\n\n10\n\nHe crawled, and halted listening, and crawled again until nightfall, and\nno doubt the German Alexander and his lieutenant did the same. A large\nscale map of Goat Island marked with red and blue lines to show these\nstrategic movements would no doubt have displayed much interlacing, but\nas a matter of fact neither side saw anything of the other throughout\nthat age-long day of tedious alertness. Bert never knew how near he got\nto them nor how far he kept from them. Night found him no longer sleepy,\nbut athirst, and near the American Fall. He was inspired by the idea\nthat his antagonists might be in the wreckage of the Hohenzollern cabins\nthat was jammed against Green Island. He became enterprising, broke from\nany attempt to conceal himself, and went across the little bridge at the\ndouble. He found nobody. It was his first visit to these huge fragments\nof airships, and for a time he explored them curiously in the dim\nlight. He discovered the forward cabin was nearly intact, with its door\nslanting downward and a corner under water. He crept in, drank, and then\nwas struck by the brilliant idea of shutting the door and sleeping on\nit.\n\nBut now he could not sleep at all.\n\nHe nodded towards morning and woke up to find it fully day. He\nbreakfasted on corned beef and water, and sat for a long time\nappreciative of the security of his position. At last he became\nenterprising and bold. He would, he decided, settle this business\nforthwith, one way or the other. He was tired of all this crawling. He\nset out in the morning sunshine, gun in hand, scarcely troubling to walk\nsoftly. He went round the refreshment shed without finding any one,\nand then through the trees towards the flying-machine. He came upon the\nbird-faced man sitting on the ground with his back against a tree, bent\nup over his folded arms, sleeping, his bandage very much over one eye.\n\nBert stopped abruptly and stood perhaps fifteen yards away, gun in hand\nready. Where was the Prince? Then, sticking out at the side of the tree\nbeyond, he saw a shoulder. Bert took five deliberate paces to the left.\nThe great man became visible, leaning up against the trunk, pistol in\none hand and sword in the other, and yawning--yawning. You can\'t shoot\na yawning man Bert found. He advanced upon his antagonist with his\ngun levelled, some foolish fancy of \"hands up\" in his mind. The Prince\nbecame aware of him, the yawning mouth shut like a trap and he stood\nstiffly up. Bert stopped, silent. For a moment the two regarded one\nanother.\n\nHad the Prince been a wise man he would, I suppose, have dodged behind\nthe tree. Instead, he gave vent to a shout, and raised pistol and sword.\nAt that, like an automaton, Bert pulled his trigger.\n\nIt was his first experience of an oxygen-containing bullet. A great\nflame spurted from the middle of the Prince, a blinding flare, and\nthere came a thud like the firing of a gun. Something hot and wet struck\nBert\'s face. Then through a whirl of blinding smoke and steam he saw\nlimbs and a collapsing, burst body fling themselves to earth.\n\nBert was so astonished that he stood agape, and the bird-faced officer\nmight have cut him to the earth without a struggle. But instead the\nbird-faced officer was running away through the undergrowth, dodging as\nhe went. Bert roused himself to a brief ineffectual pursuit, but he had\nno stomach for further killing. He returned to the mangled, scattered\nthing that had so recently been the great Prince Karl Albert. He\nsurveyed the scorched and splashed vegetation about it. He made some\nspeculative identifications. He advanced gingerly and picked up the hot\nrevolver, to find all its chambers strained and burst. He became aware\nof a cheerful and friendly presence. He was greatly shocked that one so\nyoung should see so frightful a scene.\n\n\"\'Ere, Kitty,\" he said, \"this ain\'t no place for you.\"\n\nHe made three strides across the devastated area, captured the kitten\nneatly, and went his way towards the shed, with her purring loudly on\nhis shoulder.\n\n\"YOU don\'t seem to mind,\" he said.\n\nFor a time he fussed about the shed, and at last discovered the rest\nof the provisions hidden in the roof. \"Seems \'ard,\" he said, as he\nadministered a saucerful of milk, \"when you get three men in a \'ole like\nthis, they can\'t work together. But \'im and \'is princing was jest a bit\ntoo thick!\"\n\n\"Gaw!\" he reflected, sitting on the counter and eating, \"what a thing\nlife is! \'Ere am I; I seen \'is picture, \'eard \'is name since I was a kid\nin frocks. Prince Karl Albert! And if any one \'ad tole me I was going to\nblow \'im to smithereens--there! I shouldn\'t \'ave believed it, Kitty.\n\n\"That chap at Margit ought to \'ave tole me about it. All \'e tole me was\nthat I got a weak chess.\n\n\"That other chap, \'e ain\'t going to do much. Wonder what I ought to do\nabout \'im?\"\n\nHe surveyed the trees with a keen blue eye and fingered the gun on his\nknee. \"I don\'t like this killing, Kitty,\" he said. \"It\'s like Kurt said\nabout being blooded. Seems to me you got to be blooded young.... If\nthat Prince \'ad come up to me and said, \'Shake \'ands!\' I\'d \'ave shook\n\'ands.... Now \'ere\'s that other chap, dodging about! \'E\'s got \'is \'ead\n\'urt already, and there\'s something wrong with his leg. And burns.\nGolly! it isn\'t three weeks ago I first set eyes on \'im, and then \'e was\nsmart and set up--\'ands full of \'air-brushes and things, and swearin\' at\nme. A regular gentleman! Now \'e\'s \'arfway to a wild man. What am I to do\nwith \'im? What the \'ell am I to do with \'im? I can\'t leave \'im \'ave that\nflying-machine; that\'s a bit too good, and if I don\'t kill \'im, \'e\'ll\njest \'ang about this island and starve....\n\n\"\'E\'s got a sword, of course\"....\n\nHe resumed his philosophising after he had lit a cigarette.\n\n\"War\'s a silly gaim, Kitty. It\'s a silly gaim! We common people--we were\nfools. We thought those big people knew what they were up to--and they\ndidn\'t. Look at that chap! \'E \'ad all Germany be\'ind \'im, and what \'as\n\'e made of it? Smeshin\' and blunderin\' and destroyin\', and there \'e \'is!\nJest a mess of blood and boots and things! Jest an \'orrid splash! Prince\nKarl Albert! And all the men \'e led and the ships \'e \'ad, the airships,\nand the dragon-fliers--all scattered like a paper-chase between this\n\'ole and Germany. And fightin\' going on and burnin\' and killin\' that \'e\nstarted, war without end all over the world!\n\n\"I suppose I shall \'ave to kill that other chap. I suppose I must. But\nit ain\'t at all the sort of job I fancy, Kitty!\"\n\nFor a time he hunted about the island amidst the uproar of the\nwaterfall, looking for the wounded officer, and at last he started him\nout of some bushes near the head of Biddle Stairs. But as he saw the\nbent and bandaged figure in limping flight before him, he found his\nCockney softness too much for him again; he could neither shoot nor\npursue. \"I carn\'t,\" he said, \"that\'s flat. I \'aven\'t the guts for it!\n\'E\'ll \'ave to go.\"\n\nHe turned his steps towards the flying-machine....\n\nHe never saw the bird-faced officer again, nor any further evidence of\nhis presence. Towards evening he grew fearful of ambushes and hunted\nvigorously for an hour or so, but in vain. He slept in a good defensible\nposition at the extremity of the rocky point that runs out to the\nCanadian Fall, and in the night he woke in panic terror and fired his\ngun. But it was nothing. He slept no more that night. In the morning he\nbecame curiously concerned for the vanished man, and hunted for him as\none might for an erring brother.\n\n\"If I knew some German,\" he said, \"I\'d \'oller. It\'s jest not knowing\nGerman does it. You can\'t explain\'\"\n\nHe discovered, later, traces of an attempt to cross the gap in the\nbroken bridge. A rope with a bolt attached had been flung across and had\ncaught in a fenestration of a projecting fragment of railing. The end of\nthe rope trailed in the seething water towards the fall.\n\nBut the bird-faced officer was already rubbing shoulders with certain\ninert matter that had once been Lieutenant Kurt and the Chinese aeronaut\nand a dead cow, and much other uncongenial company, in the huge circle\nof the Whirlpool two and a quarter miles away. Never had that great\ngathering place, that incessant, aimless, unprogressive hurry of\nwaste and battered things, been so crowded with strange and melancholy\nderelicts. Round they went and round, and every day brought its\nnew contributions, luckless brutes, shattered fragments of boat and\nflying-machine, endless citizens from the cities upon the shores of the\ngreat lakes above. Much came from Cleveland. It all gathered here, and\nwhirled about indefinitely, and over it all gathered daily a greater\nabundance of birds.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X. THE WORLD UNDER THE WAR\n\n1\n\nBert spent two more days upon Goat Island, and finished all his\nprovisions except the cigarettes and mineral water, before he brought\nhimself to try the Asiatic flying-machine.\n\nEven at last he did not so much go off upon it as get carried off. It\nhad taken only an hour or so to substitute wing stays from the second\nflying-machine and to replace the nuts he had himself removed. The\nengine was in working order, and differed only very simply and obviously\nfrom that of a contemporary motor-bicycle. The rest of the time was\ntaken up by a vast musing and delaying and hesitation. Chiefly he saw\nhimself splashing into the rapids and whirling down them to the Fall,\nclutching and drowning, but also he had a vision of being hopelessly in\nthe air, going fast and unable to ground. His mind was too concentrated\nupon the business of flying for him to think very much of what might\nhappen to an indefinite-spirited Cockney without credential who arrived\non an Asiatic flying-machine amidst the war-infuriated population\nbeyond.\n\nHe still had a lingering solicitude for the bird-faced officer. He had\na haunting fancy he might be lying disabled or badly smashed in some\nway in some nook or cranny of the Island; and it was only after a most\nexhaustive search that he abandoned that distressing idea. \"If I found\n\'im,\" he reasoned the while, \"what could I do wiv \'im? You can\'t blow\na chap\'s brains out when \'e\'s down. And I don\' see \'ow else I can \'elp\n\'im.\"\n\nThen the kitten bothered his highly developed sense of social\nresponsibility. \"If I leave \'er, she\'ll starve.... Ought to catch mice\nfor \'erself.... ARE there mice?... Birds?... She\'s too young.... She\'s\nlike me; she\'s a bit too civilised.\"\n\nFinally he stuck her in his side pocket and she became greatly\ninterested in the memories of corned beef she found there. With her in\nhis pocket, he seated himself in the saddle of the flying-machine. Big,\nclumsy thing it was--and not a bit like a bicycle. Still the working of\nit was fairly plain. You set the engine going--SO; kicked yourself\nup until the wheel was vertical, SO; engaged the gyroscope, SO, and\nthen--then--you just pulled up this lever.\n\nRather stiff it was, but suddenly it came over--\n\nThe big curved wings on either side flapped disconcertingly, flapped\nagain\' click, clock, click, clock, clitter-clock!\n\nStop! The thing was heading for the water; its wheel was in the water.\nBert groaned from his heart and struggled to restore the lever to its\nfirst position. Click, clock, clitter-clock, he was rising! The machine\nwas lifting its dripping wheel out of the eddies, and he was going up!\nThere was no stopping now, no good in stopping now. In another moment\nBert, clutching and convulsive and rigid, with staring eyes and a face\npale as death, was flapping up above the Rapids, jerking to every jerk\nof the wings, and rising, rising.\n\nThere was no comparison in dignity and comfort between a flying-machine\nand a balloon. Except in its moments of descent, the balloon was a\nvehicle of faultless urbanity; this was a buck-jumping mule, a mule that\njumped up and never came down again. Click, clock, click, clock; with\neach beat of the strangely shaped wings it jumped Bert upward and\ncaught him neatly again half a second later on the saddle. And while in\nballooning there is no wind, since the balloon is a part of the wind,\nflying is a wild perpetual creation of and plunging into wind. It was\na wind that above all things sought to blind him, to force him to close\nhis eyes. It occurred to him presently to twist his knees and legs\ninward and grip with them, or surely he would have been bumped into two\nclumsy halves. And he was going up, a hundred yards high, two hundred,\nthree hundred, over the streaming, frothing wilderness of water\nbelow--up, up, up. That was all right, but how presently would one go\nhorizontally? He tried to think if these things did go horizontally. No!\nThey flapped up and then they soared down. For a time he would keep\non flapping up. Tears streamed from his eyes. He wiped them with one\ntemerariously disengaged hand.\n\nWas it better to risk a fall over land or over water--such water?\n\nHe was flapping up above the Upper Rapids towards Buffalo. It was at any\nrate a comfort that the Falls and the wild swirl of waters below them\nwere behind him. He was flying up straight. That he could see. How did\none turn?\n\nHe was presently almost cool, and his eyes got more used to the rush\nof air, but he was getting very high, very high. He tilted his head\nforwards and surveyed the country, blinking. He could see all over\nBuffalo, a place with three great blackened scars of ruin, and hills and\nstretches beyond. He wondered if he was half a mile high, or more.\nThere were some people among some houses near a railway station between\nNiagara and Buffalo, and then more people. They went like ants busily\nin and out of the houses. He saw two motor cars gliding along the road\ntowards Niagara city. Then far away in the south he saw a great Asiatic\nairship going eastward. \"Oh, Gord!\" he said, and became earnest in his\nineffectual attempts to alter his direction. But that airship took no\nnotice of him, and he continued to ascend convulsively. The world got\nmore and more extensive and maplike. Click, clock, clitter-clock. Above\nhim and very near to him now was a hazy stratum of cloud.\n\nHe determined to disengage the wing clutch. He did so. The lever\nresisted his strength for a time, then over it came, and instantly\nthe tail of the machine cocked up and the wings became rigidly spread.\nInstantly everything was swift and smooth and silent. He was\ngliding rapidly down the air against a wild gale of wind, his eyes\nthree-quarters shut.\n\nA little lever that had hitherto been obdurate now confessed itself\nmobile. He turned it over gently to the right, and whiroo!--the left\nwing had in some mysterious way given at its edge and he was sweeping\nround and downward in an immense right-handed spiral. For some moments\nhe experienced all the helpless sensations of catastrophe. He restored\nthe lever to its middle position with some difficulty, and the wings\nwere equalised again.\n\nHe turned it to the left and had a sensation of being spun round\nbackwards. \"Too much!\" he gasped.\n\nHe discovered that he was rushing down at a headlong pace towards a\nrailway line and some factory buildings. They appeared to be tearing up\nto him to devour him. He must have dropped all that height. For a moment\nhe had the ineffectual sensations of one whose bicycle bolts downhill.\nThe ground had almost taken him by surprise. \"\'Ere!\" he cried; and then\nwith a violent effort of all his being he got the beating engine at work\nagain and set the wings flapping. He swooped down and up and resumed his\nquivering and pulsating ascent of the air.\n\nHe went high again, until he had a wide view of the pleasant upland\ncountry of western New York State, and then made a long coast down, and\nso up again, and then a coast. Then as he came swooping a quarter of\na mile above a village he saw people running about, running\naway--evidently in relation to his hawk-like passage. He got an idea\nthat he had been shot at.\n\n\"Up!\" he said, and attacked that lever again. It came over with\nremarkable docility, and suddenly the wings seemed to give way in the\nmiddle. But the engine was still! It had stopped. He flung the lever\nback rather by instinct than design. What to do?\n\nMuch happened in a few seconds, but also his mind was quick, he thought\nvery quickly. He couldn\'t get up again, he was gliding down the air; he\nwould have to hit something.\n\nHe was travelling at the rate of perhaps thirty miles an hour down,\ndown.\n\nThat plantation of larches looked the softest thing--mossy almost!\n\nCould he get it? He gave himself to the steering. Round to the\nright--left!\n\nSwirroo! Crackle! He was gliding over the tops of the trees, ploughing\nthrough them, tumbling into a cloud of green sharp leaves and black\ntwigs. There was a sudden snapping, and he fell off the saddle forward,\na thud and a crashing of branches. Some twigs hit him smartly in the\nface....\n\nHe was between a tree-stem and the saddle, with his leg over the\nsteering lever and, so far as he could realise, not hurt. He tried to\nalter his position and free his leg, and found himself slipping and\ndropping through branches with everything giving way beneath him. He\nclutched and found himself in the lower branches of a tree beneath the\nflying-machine. The air was full of a pleasant resinous smell. He stared\nfor a moment motionless, and then very carefully clambered down branch\nby branch to the soft needle-covered ground below.\n\n\"Good business,\" he said, looking up at the bent and tilted kite-wings\nabove.\n\n\"I dropped soft!\"\n\nHe rubbed his chin with his hand and meditated. \"Blowed if I don\'t\nthink I\'m a rather lucky fellow!\" he said, surveying the pleasant\nsun-bespattered ground under the trees. Then he became aware of\na violent tumult at his side. \"Lord!\" he said, \"You must be \'arf\nsmothered,\" and extracted the kitten from his pocket-handkerchief and\npocket. She was twisted and crumpled and extremely glad to see the light\nagain. Her little tongue peeped between her teeth. He put her down, and\nshe ran a dozen paces and shook herself and stretched and sat up and\nbegan to wash.\n\n\"Nex\'?\" he said, looking about him, and then with a gesture of vexation,\n\"Desh it! I ought to \'ave brought that gun!\"\n\nHe had rested it against a tree when he had seated himself in the\nflying-machine saddle.\n\nHe was puzzled for a time by the immense peacefulness in the quality of\nthe world, and then he perceived that the roar of the cataract was no\nlonger in his ears.\n\n2\n\nHe had no very clear idea of what sort of people he might come upon\nin this country. It was, he knew, America. Americans he had always\nunderstood were the citizens of a great and powerful nation, dry and\nhumorous in their manner, addicted to the use of the bowie-knife\nand revolver, and in the habit of talking through the nose like\nNorfolkshire, and saying \"allow\" and \"reckon\" and \"calculate,\" after the\nmanner of the people who live on the New Forest side of Hampshire. Also\nthey were very rich, had rocking-chairs, and put their feet at unusual\naltitudes, and they chewed tobacco, gum, and other substances, with\nuntiring industry. Commingled with them were cowboys, Red Indians, and\ncomic, respectful niggers. This he had learnt from the fiction in\nhis public library. Beyond that he had learnt very little. He was not\nsurprised therefore when he met armed men.\n\nHe decided to abandon the shattered flying-machine. He wandered through\nthe trees for some time, and then struck a road that seemed to his urban\nEnglish eyes to be remarkably wide but not properly \"made.\" Neither\nhedge nor ditch nor curbed distinctive footpath separated it from the\nwoods, and it went in that long easy curve which distinguishes the\ntracks of an open continent. Ahead he saw a man carrying a gun under his\narm, a man in a soft black hat, a blue blouse, and black trousers,\nand with a broad round-fat face quite innocent of goatee. This person\nregarded him askance and heard him speak with a start.\n\n\"Can you tell me whereabouts I am at all?\" asked Bert.\n\nThe man regarded him, and more particularly his rubber boots, with\nsinister suspicion. Then he replied in a strange outlandish tongue\nthat was, as a matter of fact, Czech. He ended suddenly at the sight of\nBert\'s blank face with \"Don\'t spik English.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Bert. He reflected gravely for a moment, and then went his\nway.\n\n\"Thenks,\" he, said as an afterthought. The man regarded his back for a\nmoment, was struck with an idea, began an abortive gesture, sighed, gave\nit up, and went on also with a depressed countenance.\n\nPresently Bert came to a big wooden house standing casually among the\ntrees. It looked a bleak, bare box of a house to him, no creeper grew on\nit, no hedge nor wall nor fence parted it off from the woods about it.\nHe stopped before the steps that led up to the door, perhaps thirty\nyards away. The place seemed deserted. He would have gone up to the\ndoor and rapped, but suddenly a big black dog appeared at the side and\nregarded him. It was a huge heavy-jawed dog of some unfamiliar breed,\nand it, wore a spike-studded collar. It did not bark nor approach him,\nit just bristled quietly and emitted a single sound like a short, deep\ncough.\n\nBert hesitated and went on.\n\nHe stopped thirty paces away and stood peering about him among the\ntrees. \"If I \'aven\'t been and lef\' that kitten,\" he said.\n\nAcute sorrow wrenched him for a time. The black dog came through the\ntrees to get a better look at him and coughed that well-bred cough\nagain. Bert resumed the road.\n\n\"She\'ll do all right,\" he said.... \"She\'ll catch things.\n\n\"She\'ll do all right,\" he said presently, without conviction. But if it\nhad not been for the black dog, he would have gone back.\n\nWhen he was out of sight of the house and the black dog, he went into\nthe woods on the other side of the way and emerged after an interval\ntrimming a very tolerable cudgel with his pocket-knife. Presently he saw\nan attractive-looking rock by the track and picked it up and put it in\nhis pocket. Then he came to three or four houses, wooden like the last,\neach with an ill-painted white verandah (that was his name for it) and\nall standing in the same casual way upon the ground. Behind, through\nthe woods, he saw pig-stys and a rooting black sow leading a brisk,\nadventurous family. A wild-looking woman with sloe-black eyes and\ndishevelled black hair sat upon the steps of one of the houses nursing a\nbaby, but at the sight of Bert she got up and went inside, and he heard\nher bolting the door. Then a boy appeared among the pig-stys, but he\nwould not understand Bert\'s hail.\n\n\"I suppose it is America!\" said Bert.\n\nThe houses became more frequent down the road, and he passed two other\nextremely wild and dirty-looking men without addressing them. One\ncarried a gun and the other a hatchet, and they scrutinised him and his\ncudgel scornfully. Then he struck a cross-road with a mono-rail at its\nside, and there was a notice board at the corner with \"Wait here for the\ncars.\" \"That\'s all right, any\'ow,\" said Bert. \"Wonder \'ow long I should\n\'ave to wait?\" It occurred to him that in the present disturbed state of\nthe country the service might be interrupted, and as there seemed more\nhouses to the right than the left he turned to the right. He passed an\nold negro. \"\'Ullo!\" said Bert. \"Goo\' morning!\"\n\n\"Good day, sah!\" said the old negro, in a voice of almost incredible\nrichness.\n\n\"What\'s the name of this place?\" asked Bert.\n\n\"Tanooda, sah!\" said the negro.\n\n\"Thenks!\" said Bert.\n\n\"Thank YOU, sah!\" said the negro, overwhelmingly.\n\nBert came to houses of the same detached, unwalled, wooden type, but\nadorned now with enamelled advertisements partly in English and partly\nin Esperanto. Then he came to what he concluded was a grocer\'s shop. It\nwas the first house that professed the hospitality of an open door, and\nfrom within came a strangely familiar sound. \"Gaw!\" he said searching\nin his pockets. \"Why! I \'aven\'t wanted money for free weeks! I wonder\nif I--Grubb \'ad most of it. Ah!\" He produced a handful of coins and\nregarded it; three pennies, sixpence, and a shilling. \"That\'s all\nright,\" he said, forgetting a very obvious consideration.\n\nHe approached the door, and as he did so a compactly built, grey-faced\nman in shirt sleeves appeared in it and scrutinised him and his cudgel.\n\"Mornin\',\" said Bert. \"Can I get anything to eat \'r drink in this shop?\"\n\nThe man in the door replied, thank Heaven, in clear, good American.\n\"This, sir, is not A shop, it is A store.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" said Bert, and then, \"Well, can I get anything to eat?\"\n\n\"You can,\" said the American in a tone of confident encouragement, and\nled the way inside.\n\nThe shop seemed to him by his Bun Hill standards extremely roomy, well\nlit, and unencumbered. There was a long counter to the left of him,\nwith drawers and miscellaneous commodities ranged behind it, a number of\nchairs, several tables, and two spittoons to the right, various barrels,\ncheeses, and bacon up the vista, and beyond, a large archway leading to\nmore space. A little group of men was assembled round one of the tables,\nand a woman of perhaps five-and-thirty leant with her elbows on the\ncounter. All the men were armed with rifles, and the barrel of a gun\npeeped above the counter. They were all listening idly, inattentively,\nto a cheap, metallic-toned gramophone that occupied a table near at\nhand. From its brazen throat came words that gave Bert a qualm of\nhomesickness, that brought back in his memory a sunlit beach, a group of\nchildren, red-painted bicycles, Grubb, and an approaching balloon:--\n\n\"Ting-a-ling-a-ting-a-ling-a-ting-a ling-a-tang... What Price Hair-pins\nNow?\"\n\nA heavy-necked man in a straw hat, who was chewing something, stopped\nthe machine with a touch, and they all turned their eyes on Bert. And\nall their eyes were tired eyes.\n\n\"Can we give this gentleman anything to eat, mother, or can we not?\"\nsaid the proprietor.\n\n\"He kin have what he likes?\" said the woman at the counter, without\nmoving, \"right up from a cracker to a square meal.\" She struggled with a\nyawn, after the manner of one who has been up all night.\n\n\"I want a meal,\" said Bert, \"but I \'aven\'t very much money. I don\' want\nto give mor\'n a shillin\'.\"\n\n\"Mor\'n a WHAT?\" said the proprietor, sharply.\n\n\"Mor\'n a shillin\',\" said Bert, with a sudden disagreeable realisation\ncoming into his mind.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the proprietor, startled for a moment from his courtly\nbearing. \"But what in hell is a shilling?\"\n\n\"He means a quarter,\" said a wise-looking, lank young man in riding\ngaiters.\n\nBert, trying to conceal his consternation, produced a coin. \"That\'s a\nshilling,\" he said.\n\n\"He calls A store A shop,\" said the proprietor, \"and he wants A meal for\nA shilling. May I ask you, sir, what part of America you hail from?\"\n\nBert replaced the shilling in his pocket as he spoke, \"Niagara,\" he\nsaid.\n\n\"And when did you leave Niagara?\"\n\n\"\'Bout an hour ago.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said the proprietor, and turned with a puzzled smile to the\nothers. \"Well!\"\n\nThey asked various questions simultaneously.\n\nBert selected one or two for reply. \"You see,\" he said, \"I been with\nthe German air-fleet. I got caught up by them, sort of by accident, and\nbrought over here.\"\n\n\"From England?\"\n\n\"Yes--from England. Way of Germany. I was in a great battle with them\nAsiatics, and I got lef\' on a little island between the Falls.\"\n\n\"Goat Island?\"\n\n\"I don\' know what it was called. But any\'ow I found a flying-machine and\nmade a sort of fly with it and got here.\"\n\nTwo men stood up with incredulous eyes on him. \"Where\'s the\nflying-machine?\" they asked; \"outside?\"\n\n\"It\'s back in the woods here--\'bout arf a mile away.\"\n\n\"Is it good?\" said a thick-lipped man with a scar.\n\n\"I come down rather a smash--.\"\n\nEverybody got up and stood about him and talked confusingly. They wanted\nhim to take them to the flying-machine at once.\n\n\"Look \'ere,\" said Bert, \"I\'ll show you--only I \'aven\'t \'ad anything to\neat since yestiday--except mineral water.\"\n\nA gaunt soldierly-looking young man with long lean legs in riding\ngaiters and a bandolier, who had hitherto not spoken, intervened now on\nhis behalf in a note of confident authority. \"That\'s aw right,\" he said.\n\"Give him a feed, Mr. Logan--from me. I want to hear more of that story\nof his. We\'ll see his machine afterwards. If you ask me, I should say\nit\'s a remarkably interesting accident had dropped this gentleman here.\nI guess we requisition that flying-machine--if we find it--for local\ndefence.\"\n\n3\n\nSo Bert fell on his feet again, and sat eating cold meat and good bread\nand mustard and drinking very good beer, and telling in the roughest\noutline and with the omissions and inaccuracies of statement natural to\nhis type of mind, the simple story of his adventures. He told how he and\na \"gentleman friend\" had been visiting the seaside for their health, how\na \"chep\" came along in a balloon and fell out as he fell in, how he had\ndrifted to Franconia, how the Germans had seemed to mistake him for some\none and had \"took him prisoner\" and brought him to New York, how he\nhad been to Labrador and back, how he had got to Goat Island and\nfound himself there alone. He omitted the matter of the Prince and the\nButteridge aspect of the affair, not out of any deep deceitfulness,\nbut because he felt the inadequacy of his narrative powers. He wanted\neverything to seem easy and natural and correct, to present himself as a\ntrustworthy and understandable Englishman in a sound mediocre position,\nto whom refreshment and accommodation might be given with freedom and\nconfidence. When his fragmentary story came to New York and the battle\nof Niagara, they suddenly produced newspapers which had been lying about\non the table, and began to check him and question him by these vehement\naccounts. It became evident to him that his descent had revived and\nroused to flames again a discussion, a topic, that had been burning\ncontinuously, that had smouldered only through sheer exhaustion of\nmaterial during the temporary diversion of the gramophone, a discussion\nthat had drawn these men together, rifle in hand, the one supreme topic\nof the whole world, the War and the methods of the War. He found any\nquestion of his personality and his personal adventures falling into the\nbackground, found himself taken for granted, and no more than a source\nof information. The ordinary affairs of life, the buying and selling\nof everyday necessities, the cultivation of the ground, the tending\nof beasts, was going on as it were by force of routine, as the common\nduties of life go on in a house whose master lies under the knife of\nsome supreme operation. The overruling interest was furnished by those\ngreat Asiatic airships that went upon incalculable missions across the\nsky, the crimson-clad swordsmen who might come fluttering down demanding\npetrol, or food, or news. These men were asking, all the continent was\nasking, \"What are we to do? What can we try? How can we get at them?\"\nBert fell into his place as an item, ceased even in his own thoughts to\nbe a central and independent thing.\n\nAfter he had eaten and drunken his fill and sighed and stretched and\ntold them how good the food seemed to him, he lit a cigarette they gave\nhim and led the way, with some doubts and trouble, to the flying-machine\namidst the larches. It became manifest that the gaunt young man, whose\nname, it seemed, was Laurier, was a leader both by position and natural\naptitude. He knew the names and characters and capabilities of all the\nmen who were with him, and he set them to work at once with vigour and\neffect to secure this precious instrument of war. They got the thing\ndown to the ground deliberately and carefully, felling a couple of trees\nin the process, and they built a wide flat roof of timbers and tree\nboughs to guard their precious find against its chance discovery by any\npassing Asiatics. Long before evening they had an engineer from the next\ntownship at work upon it, and they were casting lots among the seventeen\npicked men who wanted to take it for its first flight. And Bert found\nhis kitten and carried it back to Logan\'s store and handed it with\nearnest admonition to Mrs. Logan. And it was reassuringly clear to him\nthat in Mrs. Logan both he and the kitten had found a congenial soul.\n\nLaurier was not only a masterful person and a wealthy property owner and\nemployer--he was president, Bert learnt with awe, of the Tanooda Canning\nCorporation--but he was popular and skilful in the arts of popularity.\nIn the evening quite a crowd of men gathered in the store and talked of\nthe flying-machine and of the war that was tearing the world to pieces.\nAnd presently came a man on a bicycle with an ill-printed newspaper of a\nsingle sheet which acted like fuel in a blazing furnace of talk. It\nwas nearly all American news; the old-fashioned cables had fallen into\ndisuse for some years, and the Marconi stations across the ocean and\nalong the Atlantic coastline seemed to have furnished particularly\ntempting points of attack.\n\nBut such news it was.\n\nBert sat in the background--for by this time they had gauged his\npersonal quality pretty completely--listening. Before his staggering\nmind passed strange vast images as they talked, of great issues at a\ncrisis, of nations in tumultuous march, of continents overthrown, of\nfamine and destruction beyond measure. Ever and again, in spite of his\nefforts to suppress them, certain personal impressions would scamper\nacross the weltering confusion, the horrible mess of the exploded\nPrince, the Chinese aeronaut upside down, the limping and bandaged\nbird-faced officer blundering along in miserable and hopeless flight....\n\nThey spoke of fire and massacre, of cruelties and counter cruelties, of\nthings that had been done to harmless Asiatics by race-mad men, of the\nwholesale burning and smashing up of towns, railway junctions, bridges,\nof whole populations in hiding and exodus. \"Every ship they\'ve got is in\nthe Pacific,\" he heard one man exclaim. \"Since the fighting began they\ncan\'t have landed on the Pacific slope less than a million men. They\'ve\ncome to stay in these States, and they will--living or dead.\"\n\nSlowly, broadly, invincibly, there grew upon Bert\'s mind realisation\nof the immense tragedy of humanity into which his life was flowing;\nthe appalling and universal nature of the epoch that had arrived; the\nconception of an end to security and order and habit. The whole world\nwas at war and it could not get back to peace, it might never recover\npeace.\n\nHe had thought the things he had seen had been exceptional, conclusive\nthings, that the besieging of New York and the battle of the Atlantic\nwere epoch-making events between long years of security. And they had\nbeen but the first warning impacts of universal cataclysm. Each day\ndestruction and hate and disaster grew, the fissures widened between\nman and man, new regions of the fabric of civilisation crumbled and gave\nway. Below, the armies grew and the people perished; above, the airships\nand aeroplanes fought and fled, raining destruction.\n\nIt is difficult perhaps for the broad-minded and long-perspectived\nreader to understand how incredible the breaking down of the scientific\ncivilisation seemed to those who actually lived at this time, who in\ntheir own persons went down in that debacle. Progress had marched as it\nseemed invincible about the earth, never now to rest again. For three\nhundred years and more the long steadily accelerated diastole of\nEuropeanised civilisation had been in progress: towns had been\nmultiplying, populations increasing, values rising, new countries\ndeveloping; thought, literature, knowledge unfolding and spreading. It\nseemed but a part of the process that every year the instruments of war\nwere vaster and more powerful, and that armies and explosives outgrew\nall other growing things....\n\nThree hundred years of diastole, and then came the swift and unexpected\nsystole, like the closing of a fist. They could not understand it was\nsystole.\n\nThey could not think of it as anything but a jolt, a hitch, a mere\noscillatory indication of the swiftness of their progress. Collapse,\nthough it happened all about them, remained incredible. Presently some\nfalling mass smote them down, or the ground opened beneath their feet.\nThey died incredulous....\n\nThese men in the store made a minute, remote group under this immense\ncanopy of disaster. They turned from one little aspect to another. What\nchiefly concerned them was defence against Asiatic raiders swooping for\npetrol or to destroy weapons or communications. Everywhere levies were\nbeing formed at that time to defend the plant of the railroads day and\nnight in the hope that communication would speedily be restored. The\nland war was still far away. A man with a flat voice distinguished\nhimself by a display of knowledge and cunning. He told them all with\nconfidence just what had been wrong with the German drachenflieger\nand the American aeroplanes, just what advantage the Japanese flyers\npossessed. He launched out into a romantic description of the Butteridge\nmachine and riveted Bert\'s attention. \"I SEE that,\" said Bert, and was\nsmitten silent by a thought. The man with the flat voice talked on,\nwithout heeding him, of the strange irony of Butteridge\'s death. At\nthat Bert had a little twinge of relief--he would never meet Butteridge\nagain. It appeared Butteridge had died suddenly, very suddenly.\n\n\"And his secret, sir, perished with him! When they came to look for the\nparts--none could find them. He had hidden them all too well.\"\n\n\"But couldn\'t he tell?\" asked the man in the straw hat. \"Did he die so\nsuddenly as that?\"\n\n\"Struck down, sir. Rage and apoplexy. At a place called Dymchurch in\nEngland.\"\n\n\"That\'s right,\" said Laurier. \"I remember a page about it in the Sunday\nAmerican. At the time they said it was a German spy had stolen his\nballoon.\"\n\n\"Well, sir,\" said the flat-voiced man, \"that fit of apoplexy at\nDyrnchurch was the worst thing--absolutely the worst thing that ever\nhappened to the world. For if it had not been for the death of Mr.\nButteridge--\"\n\n\"No one knows his secret?\"\n\n\"Not a soul. It\'s gone. His balloon, it appears, was lost at sea, with\nall the plans. Down it went, and they went with it.\"\n\nPause.\n\n\"With machines such as he made we could fight these Asiatic fliers\non more than equal terms. We could outfly and beat down those scarlet\nhumming-birds wherever they appeared. But it\'s gone, it\'s gone, and\nthere\'s no time to reinvent it now. We got to fight with what we\ngot--and the odds are against us. THAT won\'t stop us fightin\'. No! but\njust think of it!\"\n\nBert was trembling violently. He cleared his throat hoarsely.\n\n\"I say,\" he said, \"look here, I--\"\n\nNobody regarded him. The man with the flat voice was opening a new\nbranch of the subject.\n\n\"I allow--\" he began.\n\nBert became violently excited. He stood up.\n\nHe made clawing motions with his hands. \"I say!\" he exclaimed, \"Mr.\nLaurier. Look \'ere--I want--about that Butteridge machine--.\"\n\nMr. Laurier, sitting on an adjacent table, with a magnificent gesture,\narrested the discourse of the flat-voiced man. \"What\'s HE saying?\" said\nhe.\n\nThen the whole company realised that something was happening to Bert;\neither he was suffocating or going mad. He was spluttering.\n\n\"Look \'ere! I say! \'Old on a bit!\" and trembling and eagerly unbuttoning\nhimself.\n\nHe tore open his collar and opened vest and shirt. He plunged into his\ninterior and for an instant it seemed he was plucking forth his liver.\nThen as he struggled with buttons on his shoulder they perceived this\nflattened horror was in fact a terribly dirty flannel chest-protector.\nIn an other moment Bert, in a state of irregular decolletage, was\nstanding over the table displaying a sheaf of papers.\n\n\"These!\" he gasped. \"These are the plans!... You know! Mr.\nButteridge--his machine! What died! I was the chap that went off in that\nballoon!\"\n\nFor some seconds every one was silent. They stared from these papers to\nBert\'s white face and blazing eyes, and back to the papers on the table.\nNobody moved. Then the man with the flat voice spoke.\n\n\"Irony!\" he said, with a note of satisfaction. \"Real rightdown Irony!\nWhen it\'s too late to think of making \'em any more!\"\n\n4\n\nThey would all no doubt have been eager to hear Bert\'s story over again,\nbut it was it this point that Laurier showed his quality. \"No, SIR,\" he\nsaid, and slid from off his table.\n\nHe impounded the dispersing Butteridge plans with one comprehensive\nsweep of his arm, rescuing them even from the expository finger-marks of\nthe man with the flat voice, and handed them to Bert. \"Put those back,\"\nhe said, \"where you had \'em. We have a journey before us.\"\n\nBert took them.\n\n\"Whar?\" said the man in the straw hat.\n\n\"Why, sir, we are going to find the President of these States and give\nthese plans over to him. I decline to believe, sir, we are too late.\"\n\n\"Where is the President?\" asked Bert weakly in that pause that followed.\n\n\"Logan,\" said Laurier, disregarding that feeble inquiry, \"you must help\nus in this.\"\n\nIt seemed only a matter of a few minutes before Bert and Laurier and the\nstorekeeper were examining a number of bicycles that were stowed in the\nhinder room of the store. Bert didn\'t like any of them very much. They\nhad wood rims and an experience of wood rims in the English climate had\ntaught him to hate them. That, however, and one or two other objections\nto an immediate start were overruled by Laurier. \"But where IS the\nPresident?\" Bert repeated as they stood behind Logan while he pumped up\na deflated tyre.\n\nLaurier looked down on him. \"He is reported in the neighbourhood of\nAlbany--out towards the Berkshire Hills. He is moving from place to\nplace and, as far as he can, organising the defence by telegraph and\ntelephones The Asiatic air-fleet is trying to locate him. When they\nthink they have located the seat of government, they throw bombs. This\ninconveniences him, but so far they have not come within ten miles of\nhim. The Asiatic air-fleet is at present scattered all over the\nEastern States, seeking out and destroying gas-works and whatever seems\nconducive to the building of airships or the transport of troops.\nOur retaliatory measures are slight in the extreme. But with these\nmachines--Sir, this ride of ours will count among the historical rides\nof the world!\"\n\nHe came near to striking an attitude. \"We shan\'t get to him to-night?\"\nasked Bert.\n\n\"No, sir!\" said Laurier. \"We shall have to ride some days, sure!\"\n\n\"And suppose we can\'t get a lift on a train--or anything?\"\n\n\"No, sir! There\'s been no transit by Tanooda for three days. It is no\ngood waiting. We shall have to get on as well as we can.\"\n\n\"Startin\' now?\"\n\n\"Starting now!\"\n\n\"But \'ow about--We shan\'t be able to do much to-night.\"\n\n\"May as well ride till we\'re fagged and sleep then. So much clear gain.\nOur road is eastward.\"\n\n\"Of course,\" began Bert, with memories of the dawn upon Goat Island, and\nleft his sentence unfinished.\n\nHe gave his attention to the more scientific packing of the\nchest-protector, for several of the plans flapped beyond his vest.\n\n5\n\nFor a week Bert led a life of mixed sensations. Amidst these fatigue\nin the legs predominated. Mostly he rode, rode with Laurier\'s back\ninexorably ahead, through a land like a larger England, with bigger\nhills and wider valleys, larger fields, wider roads, fewer hedges, and\nwooden houses with commodious piazzas. He rode. Laurier made inquiries,\nLaurier chose the turnings, Laurier doubted, Laurier decided. Now it\nseemed they were in telephonic touch with the President; now something\nhad happened and he was lost again. But always they had to go on, and\nalways Bert rode. A tyre was deflated. Still he rode. He grew saddle\nsore. Laurier declared that unimportant. Asiatic flying ships passed\noverhead, the two cyclists made a dash for cover until the sky was\nclear. Once a red Asiatic flying-machine came fluttering after them, so\nlow they could distinguish the aeronaut\'s head. He followed them for a\nmile. Now they came to regions of panic, now to regions of destruction;\nhere people were fighting for food, here they seemed hardly stirred\nfrom the countryside routine. They spent a day in a deserted and\ndamaged Albany. The Asiatics had descended and cut every wire and made a\ncinder-heap of the Junction, and our travellers pushed on eastward.\nThey passed a hundred half-heeded incidents, and always Bert was toiling\nafter Laurier\'s indefatigable back....\n\nThings struck upon Bert\'s attention and perplexed him, and then he\npassed on with unanswered questionings fading from his mind.\n\nHe saw a large house on fire on a hillside to the right, and no man\nheeding it....\n\nThey came to a narrow railroad bridge and presently to a mono-rail train\nstanding in the track on its safety feet. It was a remarkably sumptuous\ntrain, the Last Word Trans-Continental Express, and the passengers were\nall playing cards or sleeping or preparing a picnic meal on a grassy\nslope near at hand. They had been there six days....\n\nAt one point ten dark-complexioned men were hanging in a string from the\ntrees along the roadside. Bert wondered why....\n\nAt one peaceful-looking village where they stopped off to get Bert\'s\ntyre mended and found beer and biscuits, they were approached by an\nextremely dirty little boy without boots, who spoke as follows:--\n\n\"Deyse been hanging a Chink in dose woods!\"\n\n\"Hanging a Chinaman?\" said Laurier.\n\n\"Sure. Der sleuths got him rubberin\' der rail-road sheds!\"\n\n\"Oh!\"\n\n\"Dose guys done wase cartridges. Deyse hung him and dey pulled his legs.\nDeyse doin\' all der Chinks dey can fine dat weh! Dey ain\'t takin\' no\nrisks. All der Chinks dey can fine.\"\n\nNeither Bert nor Laurier made any reply, and presently, after a\nlittle skilful expectoration, the young gentleman was attracted by\nthe appearance of two of his friends down the road and shuffled off,\nwhooping weirdly....\n\nThat afternoon they almost ran over a man shot through the body and\npartly decomposed, lying near the middle of the road, just outside\nAlbany. He must have been lying there for some days....\n\nBeyond Albany they came upon a motor car with a tyre burst and a young\nwoman sitting absolutely passive beside the driver\'s seat. An old man\nwas under the car trying to effect some impossible repairs. Beyond,\nsitting with a rifle across his knees, with his back to the car, and\nstaring into the woods, was a young man.\n\nThe old man crawled out at their approach and still on all-fours\naccosted Bert and Laurier. The car had broken down overnight. The old\nman, said he could not understand what was wrong, but he was trying\nto puzzle it out. Neither he nor his son-in-law had any mechanical\naptitude. They had been assured this was a fool-proof car. It was\ndangerous to have to stop in this place. The party had been attacked\nby tramps and had had to fight. It was known they had provisions. He\nmentioned a great name in the world of finance. Would Laurier and Bert\nstop and help him? He proposed it first hopefully, then urgently, at\nlast in tears and terror.\n\n\"No!\" said Laurier inexorable. \"We must go on! We have something more\nthan a woman to save. We have to save America!\"\n\nThe girl never stirred.\n\nAnd once they passed a madman singing.\n\nAnd at last they found the President hiding in a small saloon upon the\noutskirts of a place called Pinkerville on the Hudson, and gave the\nplans of the Butteridge machine into his hands.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI. THE GREAT COLLAPSE\n\n1\n\nAnd now the whole fabric of civilisation was bending and giving, and\ndropping to pieces and melting in the furnace of the war.\n\nThe stages of the swift and universal collapse of the financial and\nscientific civilisation with which the twentieth century opened followed\neach other very swiftly, so swiftly that upon the foreshortened page of\nhistory--they seem altogether to overlap. To begin with, one sees the\nworld nearly at a maximum wealth and prosperity. To its inhabitants\nindeed it seemed also at a maximum of security. When now in retrospect\nthe thoughtful observer surveys the intellectual history of this time,\nwhen one reads its surviving fragments of literature, its scraps of\npolitical oratory, the few small voices that chance has selected out of\na thousand million utterances to speak to later days, the most striking\nthing of all this web of wisdom and error is surely that hallucination\nof security. To men living in our present world state, orderly,\nscientific and secured, nothing seems so precarious, so giddily\ndangerous, as the fabric of the social order with which the men of the\nopening of the twentieth century were content. To us it seems that every\ninstitution and relationship was the fruit of haphazard and tradition\nand the manifest sport of chance, their laws each made for some separate\noccasion and having no relation to any future needs, their customs\nillogical, their education aimless and wasteful. Their method of\neconomic exploitation indeed impresses a trained and informed mind as\nthe most frantic and destructive scramble it is possible to conceive;\ntheir credit and monetary system resting on an unsubstantial tradition\nof the worthiness of gold, seems a thing almost fantastically unstable.\nAnd they lived in planless cities, for the most part dangerously\ncongested; their rails and roads and population were distributed over\nthe earth in the wanton confusion ten thousand irrevelant considerations\nhad made.\n\nYet they thought confidently that this was a secure and permanent\nprogressive system, and on the strength of some three hundred years\nof change and irregular improvement answered the doubter with, \"Things\nalways have gone well. We\'ll worry through!\"\n\nBut when we contrast the state of man in the opening of the twentieth\ncentury with the condition of any previous period in his history, then\nperhaps we may begin to understand something of that blind confidence.\nIt was not so much a reasoned confidence as the inevitable consequence\nof sustained good fortune. By such standards as they possessed, things\nHAD gone amazingly well for them. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say\nthat for the first time in history whole populations found themselves\nregularly supplied with more than enough to eat, and the vital\nstatistics of the time witness to an amelioration of hygienic conditions\nrapid beyond all precedent, and to a vast development of intelligence\nand ability in all the arts that make life wholesome. The level and\nquality of the average education had risen tremendously; and at the dawn\nof the twentieth century comparatively few people in Western Europe or\nAmerica were unable to read or write. Never before had there been such\nreading masses. There was wide social security. A common man might\ntravel safely over three-quarters of the habitable globe, could go\nround the earth at a cost of less than the annual earnings of a skilled\nartisan. Compared with the liberality and comfort of the ordinary life\nof the time, the order of the Roman Empire under the Antonines was local\nand limited. And every year, every month, came some new increment to\nhuman achievement, a new country opened up, new mines, new scientific\ndiscoveries, a new machine!\n\nFor those three hundred years, indeed, the movement of the world seemed\nwholly beneficial to mankind. Men said, indeed, that moral organisation\nwas not keeping pace with physical progress, but few attached any\nmeaning to these phrases, the understanding of which lies at the basis\nof our present safety. Sustaining and constructive forces did indeed\nfor a time more than balance the malign drift of chance and the natural\nignorance, prejudice, blind passion, and wasteful self-seeking of\nmankind.\n\nThe accidental balance on the side of Progress was far slighter and\ninfinitely more complex and delicate in its adjustments than the people\nof that time suspected; but that did not alter the fact that it was an\neffective balance. They did not realise that this age of relative good\nfortune was an age of immense but temporary opportunity for their kind.\nThey complacently assumed a necessary progress towards which they had\nno moral responsibility. They did not realise that this security of\nprogress was a thing still to be won--or lost, and that the time to win\nit was a time that passed. They went about their affairs energetically\nenough and yet with a curious idleness towards those threatening things.\nNo one troubled over the real dangers of mankind. They, saw their armies\nand navies grow larger and more portentous; some of their ironclads\nat the last cost as much as the whole annual expenditure upon advanced\neducation; they accumulated explosives and the machinery of destruction;\nthey allowed their national traditions and jealousies to accumulate;\nthey contemplated a steady enhancement of race hostility as the races\ndrew closer without concern or understanding, and they permitted\nthe growth in their midst of an evil-spirited press, mercenary and\nunscrupulous, incapable of good, and powerful for evil. The State had\npractically no control over the press at all. Quite heedlessly they\nallowed this torch-paper to lie at the door of their war magazine for\nany spark to fire. The precedents of history were all one tale of the\ncollapse of civilisations, the dangers of the time were manifest. One is\nincredulous now to believe they could not see.\n\nCould mankind have prevented this disaster of the War in the Air?\n\nAn idle question that, as idle as to ask could mankind have prevented\nthe decay that turned Assyria and Babylon to empty deserts or the slow\ndecline and fall, the gradual social disorganisation, phase by phase,\nthat closed the chapter of the Empire of the West! They could not,\nbecause they did not, they had not the will to arrest it. What mankind\ncould achieve with a different will is a speculation as idle as it\nis magnificent. And this was no slow decadence that came to the\nEuropeanised world; those other civilisations rotted and crumbled down,\nthe Europeanised civilisation was, as it were, blown up. Within the\nspace of five years it was altogether disintegrated and destroyed. Up\nto the very eve of the War in the Air one sees a spacious spectacle of\nincessant advance, a world-wide security, enormous areas with highly\norganised industry and settled populations, gigantic cities spreading\ngigantically, the seas and oceans dotted with shipping, the land netted\nwith rails, and open ways. Then suddenly the German air-fleets sweep\nacross the scene, and we are in the beginning of the end.\n\n2\n\nThis story has already told of the swift rush upon New York of the\nfirst German air-fleet and of the wild, inevitable orgy of inconclusive\ndestruction that ensued. Behind it a second air-fleet was already\nswelling at its gasometers when England and France and Spain and Italy\nshowed their hands. None of these countries had prepared for aeronautic\nwarfare on the magnificent scale of the Germans, but each guarded\nsecrets, each in a measure was making ready, and a common dread of\nGerman vigour and that aggressive spirit Prince Karl Albert embodied,\nhad long been drawing these powers together in secret anticipation of\nsome such attack. This rendered their prompt co-operation possible, and\nthey certainly co-operated promptly. The second aerial power in Europe\nat this time was France; the British, nervous for their Asiatic\nempire, and sensible of the immense moral effect of the airship upon\nhalf-educated populations, had placed their aeronautic parks in North\nIndia, and were able to play but a subordinate part in the European\nconflict. Still, even in England they had nine or ten big navigables,\ntwenty or thirty smaller ones, and a variety of experimental aeroplanes.\nBefore the fleet of Prince Karl Albert had crossed England, while\nBert was still surveying Manchester in bird\'s-eye view, the diplomatic\nexchanges were going on that led to an attack upon Germany. A\nheterogeneous collection of navigable balloons of all sizes and types\ngathered over the Bernese Oberland, crushed and burnt the twenty-five\nSwiss air-ships that unexpectedly resisted this concentration in the\nbattle of the Alps, and then, leaving the Alpine glaciers and valleys\nstrewn with strange wreckage, divided into two fleets and set itself\nto terrorise Berlin and destroy the Franconian Park, seeking to do this\nbefore the second air-fleet could be inflated.\n\nBoth over Berlin and Franconia the assailants with their modern\nexplosives effected great damage before they were driven off. In\nFranconia twelve fully distended and five partially filled and manned\ngiants were able to make head against and at last, with the help of a\nsquadron of drachenflieger from Hamburg, defeat and pursue the attack\nand to relieve Berlin, and the Germans were straining every nerve to get\nan overwhelming fleet in the air, and were already raiding London and\nParis when the advance fleets from the Asiatic air-parks, the first\nintimation of a new factor in the conflict, were reported from Burmah\nand Armenia.\n\nAlready the whole financial fabric of the world was staggering when\nthat occurred. With the destruction of the American fleet in the North\nAtlantic, and the smashing conflict that ended the naval existence of\nGermany in the North Sea, with the burning and wrecking of billions of\npounds\' worth of property in the four cardinal cities of the world, the\nfact of the hopeless costliness of war came home for the first time,\ncame, like a blow in the face, to the consciousness of mankind. Credit\nwent down in a wild whirl of selling. Everywhere appeared a phenomenon\nthat had already in a mild degree manifested itself in preceding periods\nof panic; a desire to SECURE AND HOARD GOLD before prices reached\nbottom. But now it spread like wild-fire, it became universal. Above was\nvisible conflict and destruction; below something was happening far more\ndeadly and incurable to the flimsy fabric of finance and commercialism\nin which men had so blindly put their trust. As the airships fought\nabove, the visible gold supply of the world vanished below. An epidemic\nof private cornering and universal distrust swept the world. In a few\nweeks, money, except for depreciated paper, vanished into vaults, into\nholes, into the walls of houses, into ten million hiding-places. Money\nvanished, and at its disappearance trade and industry came to an end.\nThe economic world staggered and fell dead. It was like the stroke\nof some disease it was like the water vanishing out of the blood of\na living creature; it was a sudden, universal coagulation of\nintercourse....\n\nAnd as the credit system, that had been the living fortress of the\nscientific civilisation, reeled and fell upon the millions it had\nheld together in economic relationship, as these people, perplexed and\nhelpless, faced this marvel of credit utterly destroyed, the airships\nof Asia, countless and relentless, poured across the heavens, swooped\neastward to America and westward to Europe. The page of history\nbecomes a long crescendo of battle. The main body of the British-Indian\nair-fleet perished upon a pyre of blazing antagonists in Burmah; the\nGermans were scattered in the great battle of the Carpathians; the vast\npeninsula of India burst into insurrection and civil war from end to\nend, and from Gobi to Morocco rose the standards of the \"Jehad.\"\nFor some weeks of warfare and destruction it seemed as though the\nConfederation of Eastern Asia must needs conquer the world, and then\nthe jerry-built \"modern\" civilisation of China too gave way under\nthe strain. The teeming and peaceful population of China had been\n\"westernised\" during the opening years of the twentieth century with\nthe deepest resentment and reluctance; they had been dragooned and\ndisciplined under Japanese and European--influence into an acquiescence\nwith sanitary methods, police controls, military service, and wholesale\nprocess of exploitation against which their whole tradition rebelled.\nUnder the stresses of the war their endurance reached the breaking\npoint, the whole of China rose in incoherent revolt, and the practical\ndestruction of the central government at Pekin by a handful of British\nand German airships that had escaped from the main battles rendered that\nrevolt invincible. In Yokohama appeared barricades, the black flag and\nthe social revolution. With that the whole world became a welter of\nconflict.\n\nSo that a universal social collapse followed, as it were a logical\nconsequence, upon world-wide war. Wherever there were great populations,\ngreat masses of people found themselves without work, without money,\nand unable to get food. Famine was in every working-class quarter in\nthe world within three weeks of the beginning of the war. Within a\nmonth there was not a city anywhere in which the ordinary law and social\nprocedure had not been replaced by some form of emergency control, in\nwhich firearms and military executions were not being used to keep\norder and prevent violence. And still in the poorer quarters, and in the\npopulous districts, and even here and there already among those who had\nbeen wealthy, famine spread.\n\n3\n\nSo what historians have come to call the Phase of the Emergency\nCommittees sprang from the opening phase and from the phase of social\ncollapse. Then followed a period of vehement and passionate conflict\nagainst disintegration; everywhere the struggle to keep order and to\nkeep fighting went on. And at the same time the character of the war\naltered through the replacement of the huge gas-filled airships by\nflying-machines as the instruments of war. So soon as the big fleet\nengagements were over, the Asiatics endeavoured to establish in close\nproximity to the more vulnerable points of the countries against which\nthey were acting, fortified centres from which flying-machine raids\ncould be made. For a time they had everything their own way in this, and\nthen, as this story has told, the lost secret of the Butteridge machine\ncame to light, and the conflict became equalized and less conclusive\nthan ever. For these small flying-machines, ineffectual for any large\nexpedition or conclusive attack, were horribly convenient for guerilla\nwarfare, rapidly and cheaply made, easily used, easily hidden. The\ndesign of them was hastily copied and printed in Pinkerville and\nscattered broadcast over the United States and copies were sent to\nEurope, and there reproduced. Every man, every town, every parish that\ncould, was exhorted to make and use them. In a little while they were\nbeing constructed not only by governments and local authorities, but by\nrobber bands, by insurgent committees, by every type of private person.\nThe peculiar social destructiveness of the Butteridge machine lay in\nits complete simplicity. It was nearly as simple as a motor-bicycle. The\nbroad outlines of the earlier stages of the war disappeared under its\ninfluence, the spacious antagonism of nations and empires and races\nvanished in a seething mass of detailed conflict. The world passed at a\nstride from a unity and simplicity broader than that of the Roman Empire\nat its best, to as social fragmentation as complete as the robber-baron\nperiod of the Middle Ages. But this time, for a long descent down\ngradual slopes of disintegration, comes a fall like a fall over a cliff.\nEverywhere were men and women perceiving this and struggling desperately\nto keep as it were a hold upon the edge of the cliff.\n\nA fourth phase follows. Through the struggle against Chaos, in the wake\nof the Famine, came now another old enemy of humanity--the Pestilence,\nthe Purple Death. But the war does not pause. The flags still fly.\nFresh air-fleets rise, new forms of airship, and beneath their swooping\nstruggles the world darkens--scarcely heeded by history.\n\nIt is not within the design of this book to tell what further story, to\ntell how the War in the Air kept on through the sheer inability of\nany authorities to meet and agree and end it, until every organised\ngovernment in the world was as shattered and broken as a heap of china\nbeaten with a stick. With every week of those terrible years history\nbecomes more detailed and confused, more crowded and uncertain. Not\nwithout great and heroic resistance was civilisation borne down. Out\nof the bitter social conflict below rose patriotic associations,\nbrotherhoods of order, city mayors, princes, provisional committees,\ntrying to establish an order below and to keep the sky above. The double\neffort destroyed them. And as the exhaustion of the mechanical resources\nof civilisation clears the heavens of airships at last altogether,\nAnarchy, Famine and Pestilence are discovered triumphant below. The\ngreat nations and empires have become but names in the mouths of men.\nEverywhere there are ruins and unburied dead, and shrunken, yellow-faced\nsurvivors in a mortal apathy. Here there are robbers, here vigilance\ncommittees, and here guerilla bands ruling patches of exhausted\nterritory, strange federations and brotherhoods form and dissolve, and\nreligious fanaticisms begotten of despair gleam in famine-bright eyes.\nIt is a universal dissolution. The fine order and welfare of the earth\nhave crumpled like an exploded bladder. In five short years the world\nand the scope of human life have undergone a retrogressive change as\ngreat as that between the age of the Antonines and the Europe of the\nninth century....\n\n4\n\nAcross this sombre spectacle of disaster goes a minute and insignificant\nperson for whom perhaps the readers of this story have now some\nslight solicitude. Of him there remains to be told just one single\nand miraculous thing. Through a world darkened and lost, through a\ncivilisation in its death agony, our little Cockney errant went and\nfound his Edna! He found his Edna!\n\nHe got back across the Atlantic partly by means of an order from the\nPresident and partly through his own good luck. He contrived to get\nhimself aboard a British brig in the timber trade that put out from\nBoston without cargo, chiefly, it would seem, because its captain had\na vague idea of \"getting home\" to South Shields. Bert was able to ship\nhimself upon her mainly because of the seamanlike appearance of his\nrubber boots. They had a long, eventful voyage; they were chased, or\nimagined themselves to be chased, for some hours by an Asiatic ironclad,\nwhich was presently engaged by a British cruiser. The two ships fought\nfor three hours, circling and driving southward as they fought, until\nthe twilight and the cloud-drift of a rising gale swallowed them up. A\nfew days later Bert\'s ship lost her rudder and mainmast in a gale. The\ncrew ran out of food and subsisted on fish. They saw strange air-ships\ngoing eastward near the Azores and landed to get provisions and repair\nthe rudder at Teneriffe. There they found the town destroyed and two big\nliners, with dead still aboard, sunken in the harbour. From there they\ngot canned food and material for repairs, but their operations were\ngreatly impeded by the hostility of a band of men amidst the ruins of\nthe town, who sniped them and tried to drive them away.\n\nAt Mogador, they stayed and sent a boat ashore for water, and were\nnearly captured by an Arab ruse. Here too they got the Purple Death\naboard, and sailed with it incubating in their blood. The cook sickened\nfirst, and then the mate, and presently every one was down and three\nin the forecastle were dead. It chanced to be calm weather, and they\ndrifted helplessly and indeed careless of their fate backwards towards\nthe Equator. The captain doctored them all with rum. Nine died all\ntogether, and of the four survivors none understood navigation; when at\nlast they took heart again and could handle a sail, they made a course\nby the stars roughly northward and were already short of food once\nmore when they fell in with a petrol-driven ship from Rio to Cardiff,\nshorthanded by reason of the Purple Death and glad to take them aboard.\nSo at last, after a year of wandering Bert reached England. He landed in\nbright June weather, and found the Purple Death was there just beginning\nits ravages.\n\nThe people were in a state of panic in Cardiff and many had fled to the\nhills, and directly the steamer came to the harbour she was boarded\nand her residue of food impounded by some unauthenticated Provisional\nCommittee. Bert tramped through a country disorganised by pestilence,\nfoodless, and shaken to the very base of its immemorial order. He came\nnear death and starvation many times, and once he was drawn into scenes\nof violence that might have ended his career. But the Bert Smallways\nwho tramped from Cardiff to London vaguely \"going home,\" vaguely seeking\nsomething of his own that had no tangible form but Edna, was a very\ndifferent person from the Desert Dervish who was swept out of England\nin Mr. Butteridge\'s balloon a year before. He was brown and lean and\nenduring, steady-eyed and pestilence-salted, and his mouth, which had\nonce hung open, shut now like a steel trap. Across his brow ran a white\nscar that he had got in a fight on the brig. In Cardiff he had felt\nthe need of new clothes and a weapon, and had, by means that would have\nshocked him a year ago, secured a flannel shirt, a corduroy suit, and\na revolver and fifty cartridges from an abandoned pawnbroker\'s. He\nalso got some soap and had his first real wash for thirteen months in\na stream outside the town. The Vigilance bands that had at first shot\nplunderers very freely were now either entirely dispersed by the plague,\nor busy between town and cemetery in a vain attempt to keep pace with\nit. He prowled on the outskirts of the town for three or four days,\nstarving, and then went back to join the Hospital Corps for a week, and\nso fortified himself with a few square meals before he started eastward.\n\nThe Welsh and English countryside at that time presented the strangest\nmingling of the assurance and wealth of the opening twentieth century\nwith a sort of Dureresque medievalism. All the gear, the houses and\nmono-rails, the farm hedges and power cables, the roads and pavements,\nthe sign-posts and advertisements of the former order were still for the\nmost part intact. Bankruptcy, social collapse, famine, and pestilence\nhad done nothing to damage these, and it was only to the great capitals\nand ganglionic centres, as it were, of this State, that positive\ndestruction had come. Any one dropped suddenly into the country would\nhave noticed very little difference. He would have remarked first,\nperhaps, that all the hedges needed clipping, that the roadside grass\ngrew rank, that the road-tracks were unusually rainworn, and that the\ncottages by the wayside seemed in many cases shut up, that a telephone\nwire had dropped here, and that a cart stood abandoned by the wayside.\nBut he would still find his hunger whetted by the bright assurance that\nWilder\'s Canned Peaches were excellent, or that there was nothing so\ngood for the breakfast table as Gobble\'s Sausages. And then suddenly\nwould come the Dureresque element; the skeleton of a horse, or some\ncrumpled mass of rags in the ditch, with gaunt extended feet and a\nyellow, purple-blotched skin and face, or what had been a face, gaunt\nand glaring and devastated. Then here would be a field that had been\nploughed and not sown, and here a field of corn carelessly trampled by\nbeasts, and here a hoarding torn down across the road to make a fire.\n\nThen presently he would meet a man or a woman, yellow-faced and probably\nnegligently dressed and armed--prowling for food. These people would\nhave the complexions and eyes and expressions of tramps or criminals,\nand often the clothing of prosperous middle-class or upper-class people.\nMany of these would be eager for news, and willing to give help and even\nscraps of queer meat, or crusts of grey and doughy bread, in return for\nit. They would listen to Bert\'s story with avidity, and attempt to\nkeep him with them for a day or so. The virtual cessation of postal\ndistribution and the collapse of all newspaper enterprise had left an\nimmense and aching gap in the mental life of this time. Men had suddenly\nlost sight of the ends of the earth and had still to recover the\nrumour-spreading habits of the Middle Ages. In their eyes, in their\nbearing, in their talk, was the quality of lost and deoriented souls.\n\nAs Bert travelled from parish to parish, and from district to district,\navoiding as far as possible those festering centres of violence and\ndespair, the larger towns, he found the condition of affairs varying\nwidely. In one parish he would find the large house burnt, the vicarage\nwrecked, evidently in violent conflict for some suspected and perhaps\nimaginary store of food unburied dead everywhere, and the whole\nmechanism of the community at a standstill. In another he would find\norganising forces stoutly at work, newly-painted notice boards warning\noff vagrants, the roads and still cultivated fields policed by armed\nmen, the pestilence under control, even nursing going on, a store of\nfood husbanded, the cattle and sheep well guarded, and a group of two\nor three justices, the village doctor or a farmer, dominating the\nwhole place; a reversion, in fact, to the autonomous community of the\nfifteenth century. But at any time such a village would be liable to a\nraid of Asiatics or Africans or such-like air-pirates, demanding\npetrol and alcohol or provisions. The price of its order was an almost\nintolerable watchfulness and tension.\n\nThen the approach to the confused problems of some larger centre of\npopulation and the presence of a more intricate conflict would be marked\nby roughly smeared notices of \"Quarantine\" or \"Strangers Shot,\" or by a\nstring of decaying plunderers dangling from the telephone poles at the\nroadside. About Oxford big boards were put on the roofs warning all air\nwanderers off with the single word, \"Guns.\"\n\nTaking their risks amidst these things, cyclists still kept abroad, and\nonce or twice during Bert\'s long tramp powerful motor cars containing\nmasked and goggled figures went tearing past him. There were few\npolice in evidence, but ever and again squads of gaunt and tattered\nsoldier-cyclists would come drifting along, and such encounters became\nmore frequent as he got out of Wales into England. Amidst all this\nwreckage they were still campaigning. He had had some idea of resorting\nto the workhouses for the night if hunger pressed him too closely, but\nsome of these were closed and others converted into temporary hospitals,\nand one he came up to at twilight near a village in Gloucestershire\nstood with all its doors and windows open, silent as the grave, and, as\nhe found to his horror by stumbling along evil-smelling corridors, full\nof unburied dead.\n\nFrom Gloucestershire Bert went northward to the British aeronautic park\noutside Birmingham, in the hope that he might be taken on and given\nfood, for there the Government, or at any rate the War Office, still\nexisted as an energetic fact, concentrated amidst collapse and social\ndisaster upon the effort to keep the British flag still flying in\nthe air, and trying to brisk up mayor and mayor and magistrate and\nmagistrate in a new effort of organisation. They had brought together\nall the best of the surviving artisans from that region, they had\nprovisioned the park for a siege, and they were urgently building a\nlarger type of Butteridge machine. Bert could get no footing at this\nwork: he was not sufficiently skilled, and he had drifted to Oxford when\nthe great fight occurred in which these works were finally wrecked. He\nsaw something, but not very much, of the battle from a place called\nBoar Hill. He saw the Asiatic squadron coming up across the hills to the\nsouth-west, and he saw one of their airships circling southward again\nchased by two aeroplanes, the one that was ultimately overtaken, wrecked\nand burnt at Edge Hill. But he never learnt the issue of the combat as a\nwhole.\n\nHe crossed the Thames from Eton to Windsor and made his way round the\nsouth of London to Bun Hill, and there he found his brother Tom, looking\nlike some dark, defensive animal in the old shop, just recovering from\nthe Purple Death, and Jessica upstairs delirious, and, as it seemed to\nhim, dying grimly. She raved of sending out orders to customers, and\nscolded Tom perpetually lest he should be late with Mrs. Thompson\'s\npotatoes and Mrs. Hopkins\' cauliflower, though all business had long\nsince ceased and Tom had developed a quite uncanny skill in the snaring\nof rats and sparrows and the concealment of certain stores of cereals\nand biscuits from plundered grocers\' shops. Tom received his brother\nwith a sort of guarded warmth.\n\n\"Lor!\" he said, \"it\'s Bert. I thought you\'d be coming back some day, and\nI\'m glad to see you. But I carn\'t arst you to eat anything, because I\n\'aven\'t got anything to eat.... Where you been, Bert, all this time?\"\n\nBert reassured his brother by a glimpse of a partly eaten swede, and was\nstill telling his story in fragments and parentheses, when he discovered\nbehind the counter a yellow and forgotten note addressed to himself.\n\"What\'s this?\" he said, and found it was a year-old note from Edna. \"She\ncame \'ere,\" said Tom, like one who recalls a trivial thing, \"arstin\' for\nyou and arstin\' us to take \'er in. That was after the battle and settin\'\nClapham Rise afire. I was for takin\' \'er in, but Jessica wouldn\'t \'ave\nit--and so she borrowed five shillings of me quiet like and went on. I\ndessay she\'s tole you--\"\n\nShe had, Bert found. She had gone on, she said in her note, to an aunt\nand uncle who had a brickfield near Horsham. And there at last, after\nanother fortnight of adventurous journeying, Bert found her.\n\n5\n\nWhen Bert and Edna set eyes on one another, they stared and laughed\nfoolishly, so changed they were, and so ragged and surprised. And then\nthey both fell weeping.\n\n\"Oh! Bertie, boy!\" she cried. \"You\'ve come--you\'ve come!\" and put out\nher arms and staggered. \"I told \'im. He said he\'d kill me if I didn\'t\nmarry him.\"\n\nBut Edna was not married, and when presently Bert could get talk from\nher, she explained the task before him. That little patch of lonely\nagricultural country had fallen under the power of a band of bullies\nled by a chief called Bill Gore who had begun life as a butcher boy and\ndeveloped into a prize-fighter and a professional sport. They had been\norganised by a local nobleman of former eminence upon the turf, but\nafter a time he had disappeared, no one quite knew how and Bill had\nsucceeded to the leadership of the countryside, and had developed his\nteacher\'s methods with considerable vigour. There had been a strain\nof advanced philosophy about the local nobleman, and his mind ran to\n\"improving the race\" and producing the Over-Man, which in practice\ntook the form of himself especially and his little band in moderation\nmarrying with some frequency. Bill followed up the idea with an\nenthusiasm that even trenched upon his popularity with his followers.\nOne day he had happened upon Edna tending her pigs, and had at once\nfallen a-wooing with great urgency among the troughs of slush. Edna\nhad made a gallant resistance, but he was still vigorously about and\nextraordinarily impatient. He might, she said, come at any time, and she\nlooked Bert in the eyes. They were back already in the barbaric stage\nwhen a man must fight for his love.\n\nAnd here one deplores the conflicts of truth with the chivalrous\ntradition. One would like to tell of Bert sallying forth to challenge\nhis rival, of a ring formed and a spirited encounter, and Bert by some\nmiracle of pluck and love and good fortune winning. But indeed nothing\nof the sort occurred. Instead, he reloaded his revolver very carefully,\nand then sat in the best room of the cottage by the derelict brickfield,\nlooking anxious and perplexed, and listening to talk about Bill and his\nways, and thinking, thinking. Then suddenly Edna\'s aunt, with a thrill\nin her voice, announced the appearance of that individual. He was coming\nwith two others of his gang through the garden gate. Bert got up, put\nthe woman aside, and looked out. They presented remarkable figures.\nThey wore a sort of uniform of red golfing jackets and white sweaters,\nfootball singlet, and stockings and boots and each had let his fancy\nplay about his head-dress. Bill had a woman\'s hat full of cock\'s\nfeathers, and all had wild, slouching cowboy brims.\n\nBert sighed and stood up, deeply thoughtful, and Edna watched him,\nmarvelling. The women stood quite still. He left the window, and went\nout into the passage rather slowly, and with the careworn expression of\na man who gives his mind to a complex and uncertain business. \"Edna!\" he\ncalled, and when she came he opened the front door.\n\nHe asked very simply, and pointing to the foremost of the three, \"That\n\'im?... Sure?\"... and being told that it was, shot his rival instantly\nand very accurately through the chest. He then shot Bill\'s best man much\nless tidily in the head, and then shot at and winged the third man as he\nfled. The third gentleman yelped, and continued running with a comical\nend-on twist.\n\nThen Bert stood still meditating, with the pistol in his hand, and quite\nregardless of the women behind him.\n\nSo far things had gone well.\n\nIt became evident to him that if he did not go into politics at once,\nhe would be hanged as an assassin and accordingly, and without a word\nto the women, he went down to the village public-house he had passed an\nhour before on his way to Edna, entered it from the rear, and confronted\nthe little band of ambiguous roughs, who were drinking in the tap-room\nand discussing matrimony and Bill\'s affection in a facetious but envious\nmanner, with a casually held but carefully reloaded revolver, and\nan invitation to join what he called, I regret to say, a \"Vigilance\nCommittee\" under his direction. \"It\'s wanted about \'ere, and some of us\nare gettin\' it up.\" He presented himself as one having friends outside,\nthough indeed, he had no friends at all in the world but Edna and her\naunt and two female cousins.\n\nThere was a quick but entirely respectful discussion of the situation.\nThey thought him a lunatic who had tramped into, this neighbourhood\nignorant of Bill. They desired to temporise until their leader came.\nBill would settle him. Some one spoke of Bill.\n\n\"Bill\'s dead, I jest shot \'im,\" said Bert. \"We don\'t need reckon with\n\'IM. \'E\'s shot, and a red-\'aired chap with a squint, \'E\'S shot. We\'ve\nsettled up all that. There ain\'t going to be no more Bill, ever. \'E\'d\ngot wrong ideas about marriage and things. It\'s \'is sort of chap we\'re\nafter.\"\n\nThat carried the meeting.\n\nBill was perfunctorily buried, and Bert\'s Vigilance Committee (for so it\ncontinued to be called) reigned in his stead.\n\nThat is the end of this story so far as Bert Smallways is concerned.\nWe leave him with his Edna to become squatters among the clay and oak\nthickets of the Weald, far away from the stream of events. From that\ntime forth life became a succession of peasant encounters, an affair of\npigs and hens and small needs and little economies and children, until\nClapham and Bun Hill and all the life of the Scientific Age became to\nBert no more than the fading memory of a dream. He never knew how the\nWar in the Air went on, nor whether it still went on. There were rumours\nof airships going and coming, and of happenings Londonward. Once or\ntwice their shadows fell on him as he worked, but whence they came or\nwhither they went he could not tell. Even his desire to tell died out\nfor want of food. At times came robbers and thieves, at times came\ndiseases among the beasts and shortness of food, once the country was\nworried by a pack of boar-hounds he helped to kill; he went through many\ninconsecutive, irrelevant adventures. He survived them all.\n\nAccident and death came near them both ever and again and passed them\nby, and they loved and suffered and were happy, and she bore him many\nchildren--eleven children--one after the other, of whom only four\nsuccumbed to the necessary hardships of their simple life. They lived\nand did well, as well was understood in those days. They went the way of\nall flesh, year by year.\n\n\n\n\nTHE EPILOGUE\n\nIt happened that one bright summer\'s morning exactly thirty years after\nthe launching of the first German air-fleet, an old man took a small boy\nto look for a missing hen through the ruins of Bun Hill and out towards\nthe splintered pinnacles of the Crystal Palace. He was not a very\nold man; he was, as a matter of fact, still within a few weeks of\nsixty-three, but constant stooping over spades and forks and the\ncarrying of roots and manure, and exposure to the damps of life in the\nopen-air without a change of clothing, had bent him into the form of a\nsickle. Moreover, he had lost most of his teeth and that had affected\nhis digestion and through that his skin and temper. In face and\nexpression he was curiously like that old Thomas Smallways who had once\nbeen coachman to Sir Peter Bone, and this was just as it should be,\nfor he was Tom Smallways the son, who formerly kept the little\ngreen-grocer\'s shop under the straddle of the mono-rail viaduct in the\nHigh Street of Bun Hill. But now there were no green-grocer\'s shops,\nand Tom was living in one of the derelict villas hard by that unoccupied\nbuilding site that had been and was still the scene of his daily\nhorticulture. He and his wife lived upstairs, and in the drawing and\ndining rooms, which had each French windows opening on the lawn, and all\nabout the ground floor generally, Jessica, who was now a lean and lined\nand baldish but still very efficient and energetic old woman, kept\nher three cows and a multitude of gawky hens. These two were part of a\nlittle community of stragglers and returned fugitives, perhaps a hundred\nand fifty souls of them all together, that had settled down to the new\nconditions of things after the Panic and Famine and Pestilence that\nfollowed in the wake of the War. They had come back from strange refuges\nand hiding-places and had squatted down among the familiar houses and\nbegun that hard struggle against nature for food which was now the chief\ninterest of their lives. They were by sheer preoccupation with that a\npeaceful people, more particularly after Wilkes, the house agent, driven\nby some obsolete dream of acquisition, had been drowned in the pool by\nthe ruined gas-works for making inquiries into title and displaying a\nlitigious turn of mind. (He had not been murdered, you understand, but\nthe people had carried an exemplary ducking ten minutes or so beyond its\nhealthy limits.)\n\nThis little community had returned from its original habits of suburban\nparasitism to what no doubt had been the normal life of humanity for\nnearly immemorial years, a life of homely economies in the most intimate\ncontact with cows and hens and patches of ground, a life that breathes\nand exhales the scent of cows and finds the need for stimulants\nsatisfied by the activity of the bacteria and vermin it engenders. Such\nhad been the life of the European peasant from the dawn of history to\nthe beginning of the Scientific Era, so it was the large majority of the\npeople of Asia and Africa had always been wont to live. For a time it\nhad seemed that, by virtue of machines, and scientific civilisation,\nEurope was to be lifted out of this perpetual round of animal drudgery,\nand that America was to evade it very largely from the outset. And with\nthe smash of the high and dangerous and splendid edifice of mechanical\ncivilisation that had arisen so marvellously, back to the land came the\ncommon man, back to the manure.\n\nThe little communities, still haunted by ten thousand memories of a\ngreater state, gathered and developed almost tacitly a customary law\nand fell under the guidance of a medicine man or a priest. The world\nrediscovered religion and the need of something to hold its communities\ntogether. At Bun Hill this function was entrusted to an old Baptist\nminister. He taught a simple but adequate faith. In his teaching a good\nprinciple called the Word fought perpetually against a diabolical female\ninfluence called the Scarlet Woman and an evil being called Alcohol.\nThis Alcohol had long since become a purely spiritualised conception\ndeprived of any element of material application; it had no relation to\nthe occasional finds of whiskey and wine in Londoners\' cellars that gave\nBun Hill its only holidays. He taught this doctrine on Sundays, and\non weekdays he was an amiable and kindly old man, distinguished by his\nquaint disposition to wash his hands, and if possible his face, daily,\nand with a wonderful genius for cutting up pigs. He held his Sunday\nservices in the old church in the Beckenham Road, and then the\ncountryside came out in a curious reminiscence of the urban dress of\nEdwardian times. All the men without exception wore frock coats, top\nhats, and white shirts, though many had no boots. Tom was particularly\ndistinguished on these occasions because he wore a top hat with gold\nlace about it and a green coat and trousers that he had found upon a\nskeleton in the basement of the Urban and District Bank. The women, even\nJessica, came in jackets and immense hats extravagantly trimmed with\nartificial flowers and exotic birds\' feather\'s--of which there were\nabundant supplies in the shops to the north--and the children (there\nwere not many children, because a large proportion of the babies born in\nBun Hill died in a few days\' time of inexplicable maladies) had similar\nclothes cut down to accommodate them; even Stringer\'s little grandson of\nfour wore a large top hat.\n\nThat was the Sunday costume of the Bun Hill district, a curious and\ninteresting survival of the genteel traditions of the Scientific Age. On\na weekday the folk were dingily and curiously hung about with dirty rags\nof housecloth and scarlet flannel, sacking, curtain serge, and patches\nof old carpet, and went either bare-footed or on rude wooden sandals.\nThese people, the reader must understand, were an urban population\nsunken back to the state of a barbaric peasantry, and so without any of\nthe simple arts a barbaric peasantry would possess. In many ways they\nwere curiously degenerate and incompetent. They had lost any idea\nof making textiles, they could hardly make up clothes when they had\nmaterial, and they were forced to plunder the continually dwindling\nsupplies of the ruins about them for cover.\n\nAll the simple arts they had ever known they had lost, and with the\nbreakdown of modern drainage, modern water supply, shopping, and the\nlike, their civilised methods were useless. Their cooking was worse than\nprimitive. It was a feeble muddling with food over wood fires in rusty\ndrawing-room fireplaces; for the kitcheners burnt too much. Among them\nall no sense of baking or brewing or metal-working was to be found.\n\nTheir employment of sacking and such-like coarse material for work-a-day\nclothing, and their habit of tying it on with string and of thrusting\nwadding and straw inside it for warmth, gave these people an odd,\n\"packed\" appearance, and as it was a week-day when Tom took his little\nnephew for the hen-seeking excursion, so it was they were attired.\n\n\"So you\'ve really got to Bun Hill at last, Teddy,\" said old Tom,\nbeginning to talk and slackening his pace so soon as they were out of\nrange of old Jessica. \"You\'re the last of Bert\'s boys for me to see.\nWat I\'ve seen, young Bert I\'ve seen, Sissie and Matt, Tom what\'s called\nafter me, and Peter. The traveller people brought you along all right,\neh?\"\n\n\"I managed,\" said Teddy, who was a dry little boy.\n\n\"Didn\'t want to eat you on the way?\"\n\n\"They was all right,\" said Teddy, \"and on the way near Leatherhead we\nsaw a man riding on a bicycle.\"\n\n\"My word!\" said Tom, \"there ain\'t many of those about nowadays. Where\nwas he going?\"\n\n\"Said \'e was going to Dorking if the High Road was good enough. But I\ndoubt if he got there. All about Burford it was flooded. We came over\nthe hill, uncle--what they call the Roman Road. That\'s high and safe.\"\n\n\"Don\'t know it,\" said old Tom. \"But a bicycle! You\'re sure it was a\nbicycle? Had two wheels?\"\n\n\"It was a bicycle right enough.\"\n\n\"Why! I remember a time, Teddy, where there was bicycles no end, when\nyou could stand just here--the road was as smooth as a board then--and\nsee twenty or thirty coming and going at the same time, bicycles and\nmoty-bicycles; moty cars, all sorts of whirly things.\"\n\n\"No!\" said Teddy.\n\n\"I do. They\'d keep on going by all day,--\'undreds and \'undreds.\"\n\n\"But where was they all going?\" asked Teddy.\n\n\"Tearin\' off to Brighton--you never seen Brighton, I expect--it\'s down\nby the sea, used to be a moce \'mazing place--and coming and going from\nLondon.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"They did.\"\n\n\"But why?\"\n\n\"Lord knows why, Teddy. They did. Then you see that great thing there\nlike a great big rusty nail sticking up higher than all the houses, and\nthat one yonder, and that, and how something\'s fell in between \'em among\nthe houses. They was parts of the mono-rail. They went down to Brighton\ntoo and all day and night there was people going, great cars as big as\n\'ouses full of people.\"\n\nThe little boy regarded the rusty evidences acrosss the narrow muddy\nditch of cow-droppings that had once been a High Street. He was clearly\ndisposed to be sceptical, and yet there the ruins were! He grappled with\nideas beyond the strength of his imagination.\n\n\"What did they go for?\" he asked, \"all of \'em?\"\n\n\"They \'AD to. Everything was on the go those days--everything.\"\n\n\"Yes, but where did they come from?\"\n\n\"All round \'ere, Teddy, there was people living in those \'ouses, and up\nthe road more \'ouses and more people. You\'d \'ardly believe me, Teddy,\nbut it\'s Bible truth. You can go on that way for ever and ever, and keep\non coming on \'ouses, more \'ouses, and more. There\'s no end to \'em. No\nend. They get bigger and bigger.\" His voice dropped as though he named\nstrange names.\n\n\"It\'s LONDON,\" he said.\n\n\"And it\'s all empty now and left alone. All day it\'s left alone. You\ndon\'t find \'ardly a man, you won\'t find nothing but dogs and cats after\nthe rats until you get round by Bromley and Beckenham, and there you\nfind the Kentish men herding swine. (Nice rough lot they are too!) I\ntell you that so long as the sun is up it\'s as still as the grave. I\nbeen about by day--orfen and orfen.\" He paused.\n\n\"And all those \'ouses and streets and ways used to be full of people\nbefore the War in the Air and the Famine and the Purple Death. They used\nto be full of people, Teddy, and then came a time when they was full of\ncorpses, when you couldn\'t go a mile that way before the stink of \'em\ndrove you back. It was the Purple Death \'ad killed \'em every one. The\ncats and dogs and \'ens and vermin caught it. Everything and every one\n\'ad it. Jest a few of us \'appened to live. I pulled through, and your\naunt, though it made \'er lose \'er \'air. Why, you find the skeletons in\nthe \'ouses now. This way we been into all the \'ouses and took what we\nwanted and buried moce of the people, but up that way, Norwood way,\nthere\'s \'ouses with the glass in the windows still, and the furniture\nnot touched--all dusty and falling to pieces--and the bones of the\npeople lying, some in bed, some about the \'ouse, jest as the Purple\nDeath left \'em five-and-twenty years ago. I went into one--me and old\nHiggins las\' year--and there was a room with books, Teddy--you know what\nI mean by books, Teddy?\"\n\n\"I seen \'em. I seen \'em with pictures.\"\n\n\"Well, books all round, Teddy, \'undreds of books, beyond-rhyme or\nreason, as the saying goes, green-mouldy and dry. I was for leaven\' \'em\nalone--I was never much for reading--but ole Higgins he must touch em.\n\'I believe I could read one of \'em NOW,\' \'e says.\n\n\"\'Not it,\' I says.\n\n\"\'I could,\' \'e says, laughing and takes one out and opens it.\n\n\"I looked, and there, Teddy, was a cullud picture, oh, so lovely! It was\na picture of women and serpents in a garden. I never see anything like\nit.\n\n\"\'This suits me,\' said old Higgins, \'to rights.\'\n\n\"And then kind of friendly he gave the book a pat--\n\nOld Tom Smallways paused impressively.\n\n\"And then?\" said Teddy.\n\n\"It all fell to dus\'. White dus\'!\" He became still more impressive. \"We\ndidn\'t touch no more of them books that day. Not after that.\"\n\nFor a long time both were silent. Then Tom, playing with a subject that\nattracted him with a fatal fascination, repeated, \"All day long they\nlie--still as the grave.\"\n\nTeddy took the point at last. \"Don\'t they lie o\' nights?\" he asked.\n\nOld Tom shook his head. \"Nobody knows, boy, nobody knows.\"\n\n\"But what could they do?\"\n\n\"Nobody knows. Nobody ain\'t seen to tell not nobody.\"\n\n\"Nobody?\"\n\n\"They tell tales,\" said old Tom. \"They tell tales, but there ain\'t no\nbelieving \'em. I gets \'ome about sundown, and keeps indoors, so I can\'t\nsay nothing, can I? But there\'s them that thinks some things and them as\nthinks others. I\'ve \'eard it\'s unlucky to take clo\'es off of \'em unless\nthey got white bones. There\'s stories--\"\n\nThe boy watched his uncle sharply. \"WOT stories?\" he said.\n\n\"Stories of moonlight nights and things walking about. But I take no\nstock in \'em. I keeps in bed. If you listen to stories--Lord! You\'ll get\nafraid of yourself in a field at midday.\"\n\nThe little boy looked round and ceased his questions for a space.\n\n\"They say there\'s a \'og man in Beck\'n\'am what was lost in London three\ndays and three nights. \'E went up after whiskey to Cheapside, and lorst\n\'is way among the ruins and wandered. Three days and three nights \'e\nwandered about and the streets kep\' changing so\'s he couldn\'t get \'ome.\nIf \'e \'adn\'t remembered some words out of the Bible \'e might \'ave been\nthere now. All day \'e went and all night--and all day long it was still.\nIt was as still as death all day long, until the sunset came and the\ntwilight thickened, and then it began to rustle and whisper and go\npit-a-pat with a sound like \'urrying feet.\"\n\nHe paused.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the little boy breathlessly. \"Go on. What then?\"\n\n\"A sound of carts and \'orses there was, and a sound of cabs and\nomnibuses, and then a lot of whistling, shrill whistles, whistles that\nfroze \'is marrer. And directly the whistles began things begun to show,\npeople in the streets \'urrying, people in the \'ouses and shops busying\nthemselves, moty cars in the streets, a sort of moonlight in all the\nlamps and winders. People, I say, Teddy, but they wasn\'t people. They\nwas the ghosts of them that was overtook, the ghosts of them that used\nto crowd those streets. And they went past \'im and through \'im and never\n\'eeded \'im, went by like fogs and vapours, Teddy. And sometimes they\nwas cheerful and sometimes they was \'orrible, \'orrible beyond words. And\nonce \'e come to a place called Piccadilly, Teddy, and there was lights\nblazing like daylight and ladies and gentlemen in splendid clo\'es\ncrowding the pavement, and taxicabs follering along the road. And as \'e\nlooked, they all went evil--evil in the face, Teddy. And it seemed to\n\'im SUDDENLY THEY SAW \'IM, and the women began to look at \'im and say\nthings to \'im--\'orrible--wicked things. One come very near \'im, Teddy,\nright up to \'im, and looked into \'is face--close. And she \'adn\'t got a\nface to look with, only a painted skull, and then \'e see; they was\nall painted skulls. And one after another they crowded on \'im saying\n\'orrible things, and catchin\' at \'im and threatenin\' and coaxing \'im, so\nthat \'is \'eart near left \'is body for fear.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" gasped Teddy in an unendurable pause.\n\n\"Then it was he remembered the words of Scripture and saved himself\nalive. \'The Lord is my \'Elper, \'e says, \'therefore I will fear nothing,\'\nand straightaway there came a cock-crowing and the street was empty\nfrom end to end. And after that the Lord was good to \'im and guided \'im\n\'ome.\"\n\nTeddy stared and caught at another question. \"But who was the people,\"\nhe asked, \"who lived in all these \'ouses? What was they?\"\n\n\"Gent\'men in business, people with money--leastways we thought it\nwas money till everything smashed up, and then seemingly it was jes\'\npaper--all sorts. Why, there was \'undreds of thousands of them. There\nwas millions. I\'ve seen that \'I Street there regular so\'s you couldn\'t\nwalk along the pavements, shoppin\' time, with women and people\nshoppin\'.\"\n\n\"But where\'d they get their food and things?\"\n\n\"Bort \'em in shops like I used to \'ave. I\'ll show you the place, Teddy,\nif we go back. People nowadays \'aven\'t no idee of a shop--no idee.\nPlate-glass winders--it\'s all Greek to them. Why, I\'ve \'ad as much as\na ton and a \'arf of petaties to \'andle all at one time. You\'d open your\neyes till they dropped out to see jes\' what I used to \'ave in my shop.\nBaskets of pears \'eaped up, marrers, apples and pears, d\'licious great\nnuts.\" His voice became luscious--\"Benanas, oranges.\"\n\n\"What\'s benanas?\" asked the boy, \"and oranges?\"\n\n\"Fruits they was. Sweet, juicy, d\'licious fruits. Foreign fruits. They\nbrought \'em from Spain and N\' York and places. In ships and things. They\nbrought \'em to me from all over the world, and I sold \'em in my shop.\n_I_ sold \'em, Teddy! me what goes about now with you, dressed up in old\nsacks and looking for lost \'ens. People used to come into my shop,\ngreat beautiful ladies like you\'d \'ardly dream of now, dressed up to the\nnines, and say, \'Well, Mr. Smallways, what you got \'smorning?\' and\nI\'d say, \'Well, I got some very nice C\'nadian apples, \'or p\'raps I got\ncusted marrers. See? And they\'d buy \'em. Right off they\'d say, \'Send me\nsome up.\' Lord! what a life that was. The business of it, the bussel,\nthe smart things you saw, moty cars going by, kerridges, people,\norgan-grinders, German bands. Always something going past--always. If it\nwasn\'t for those empty \'ouses, I\'d think it all a dream.\"\n\n\"But what killed all the people, uncle?\" asked Teddy.\n\n\"It was a smash-up,\" said old Tom. \"Everything was going right until\nthey started that War. Everything was going like clock-work. Everybody\nwas busy and everybody was \'appy and everybody got a good square meal\nevery day.\"\n\nHe met incredulous eyes. \"Everybody,\" he said firmly. \"If you couldn\'t\nget it anywhere else, you could get it in the workhuss, a nice \'ot bowl\nof soup called skilly, and bread better\'n any one knows \'ow to make now,\nreg\'lar WHITE bread, gov\'ment bread.\"\n\nTeddy marvelled, but said nothing. It made him feel deep longings that\nhe found it wisest to fight down.\n\nFor a time the old man resigned himself to the pleasures of gustatory\nreminiscence. His lips moved. \"Pickled Sammin!\" he whispered, \"an\'\nvinegar.... Dutch cheese, BEER! A pipe of terbakker.\"\n\n\"But \'OW did the people get killed?\" asked Teddy presently.\n\n\"There was the War. The War was the beginning of it. The War banged and\nflummocked about, but it didn\'t really KILL many people. But it upset\nthings. They came and set fire to London and burnt and sank all the\nships there used to be in the Thames--we could see the smoke and steam\nfor weeks--and they threw a bomb into the Crystal Palace and made a\nbust-up, and broke down the rail lines and things like that. But as for\nkillin\' people, it was just accidental if they did. They killed each\nother more. There was a great fight all hereabout one day, Teddy--up in\nthe air. Great things bigger than fifty \'ouses, bigger than the Crystal\nPalace--bigger, bigger than anything, flying about up in the air and\nwhacking at each other and dead men fallin\' off \'em. T\'riffic! But,\nit wasn\'t so much the people they killed as the business they stopped.\nThere wasn\'t any business doin\', Teddy, there wasn\'t any money about,\nand nothin\' to buy if you \'ad it.\"\n\n\"But \'ow did the people get KILLED?\" said the little boy in the pause.\n\n\"I\'m tellin\' you, Teddy,\" said the old man. \"It was the stoppin\' of\nbusiness come next. Suddenly there didn\'t seem to be any money. There\nwas cheques--they was a bit of paper written on, and they was jes\' as\ngood as money--jes\' as good if they come from customers you knew. Then\nall of a sudden they wasn\'t. I was left with three of \'em and two I\'d\ngiven\' change. Then it got about that five-pun\' notes were no good,\nand then the silver sort of went off. Gold you \'couldn\'t get for love\nor--anything. The banks in London \'ad got it, and the banks was all\nsmashed up. Everybody went bankrup\'. Everybody was thrown out of work.\nEverybody!\"\n\nHe paused, and scrutinised his hearer. The small boy\'s intelligent face\nexpressed hopeless perplexity.\n\n\"That\'s \'ow it \'appened,\" said old Tom. He sought for some means of\nexpression. \"It was like stoppin\' a clock,\" he said. \"Things were quiet\nfor a bit, deadly quiet, except for the air-ships fighting about in the\nsky, and then people begun to get excited. I remember my lars\' customer,\nthe very lars\' customer that ever I \'ad. He was a Mr. Moses Gluckstein,\na city gent and very pleasant and fond of sparrowgrass and chokes, and\n\'e cut in--there \'adn\'t been no customers for days--and began to\ntalk very fast, offerin\' me for anything I \'ad, anything, petaties or\nanything, its weight in gold. \'E said it was a little speculation \'e\nwanted to try. \'E said it was a sort of bet reely, and very likely\n\'e\'d lose; but never mind that, \'e wanted to try. \'E always \'ad been a\ngambler, \'e said. \'E said I\'d only got to weigh it out and \'e\'d give me\n\'is cheque right away. Well, that led to a bit of a argument, perfect\nrespectful it was, but a argument about whether a cheque was still good,\nand while \'e was explaining there come by a lot of these here unemployed\nwith a great banner they \'ad for every one to read--every one could\nread those days--\'We want Food.\' Three or four of \'em suddenly turns and\ncomes into my shop.\n\n\"\'Got any food?\' says one.\n\n\"\'No,\' I says, \'not to sell. I wish I \'ad. But if I \'ad, I\'m afraid I\ncouldn\'t let you have it. This gent, \'e\'s been offerin\' me--\'\n\n\"Mr. Gluckstein \'e tried to stop me, but it was too late.\n\n\"\'What\'s \'e been offerin\' you?\' says a great big chap with a \'atchet;\n\'what\'s \'e been offerin you?\' I \'ad to tell.\n\n\"\'Boys,\' \'e said, \'\'ere\'s another feenancier!\' and they took \'im out\nthere and then, and \'ung \'im on a lam\'pose down the street. \'E never\nlifted a finger to resist. After I tole on \'im \'e never said a word....\"\n\nTom meditated for a space. \"First chap I ever sin \'ung!\" he said.\n\n\"Ow old was you?\" asked Teddy.\n\n\"\'Bout thirty,\" said old Tom.\n\n\"Why! I saw free pig-stealers \'ung before I was six,\" said Teddy.\n\"Father took me because of my birfday being near. Said I ought to be\nblooded....\"\n\n\"Well, you never saw no-one killed by a moty car, any\'ow,\" said old Tom\nafter a moment of chagrin. \"And you never saw no dead men carried into a\nchemis\' shop.\"\n\nTeddy\'s momentary triumph faded. \"No,\" he said, \"I \'aven\'t.\"\n\n\"Nor won\'t. Nor won\'t. You\'ll never see the things I\'ve seen, never.\nNot if you live to be a \'undred... Well, as I was saying, that\'s how the\nFamine and Riotin\' began. Then there was strikes and Socialism, things\nI never did \'old with, worse and worse. There was fightin\' and shootin\'\ndown, and burnin\' and plundering. They broke up the banks up in London\nand got the gold, but they couldn\'t make food out of gold. \'Ow did WE\nget on? Well, we kep\' quiet. We didn\'t interfere with no-one and no-one\ndidn\'t interfere with us. We \'ad some old \'tatoes about, but mocely we\nlived on rats. Ours was a old \'ouse, full of rats, and the famine never\nseemed to bother \'em. Orfen we got a rat. Orfen. But moce of the people\nwho lived hereabouts was too tender stummicked for rats. Didn\'t seem\nto fancy \'em. They\'d been used to all sorts of fallals, and they didn\'t\ntake to \'onest feeding, not till it was too late. Died rather.\n\n\"It was the famine began to kill people. Even before the Purple Death\ncame along they was dying like flies at the end of the summer. \'Ow I\nremember it all! I was one of the first to \'ave it. I was out, seein\' if\nI mightn\'t get \'old of a cat or somethin\', and then I went round to my\nbit of ground to see whether I couldn\'t get up some young turnips\nI\'d forgot, and I was took something awful. You\'ve no idee the pain,\nTeddy--it doubled me up pretty near. I jes\' lay down by \'at there\ncorner, and your aunt come along to look for me and dragged me \'ome like\na sack.\n\n\"I\'d never \'ave got better if it \'adn\'t been for your aunt. \'Tom,\' she\nsays to me, \'you got to get well,\' and I \'AD to. Then SHE sickened. She\nsickened but there ain\'t much dyin\' about your aunt. \'Lor!\' she says,\n\'as if I\'d leave you to go muddlin\' along alone!\' That\'s what she says.\nShe\'s got a tongue, \'as your aunt. But it took \'er \'air off--and arst\nthough I might, she\'s never cared for the wig I got \'er--orf the old\nlady what was in the vicarage garden.\n\n\"Well, this \'ere Purple Death,--it jes\' wiped people out, Teddy. You\ncouldn\'t bury \'em. And it took the dogs and the cats too, and the rats\nand \'orses. At last every house and garden was full of dead bodies.\nLondon way, you couldn\'t go for the smell of there, and we \'ad to move\nout of the \'I street into that villa we got. And all the water run short\nthat way. The drains and underground tunnels took it. Gor\' knows where\nthe Purple Death come from; some say one thing and some another. Some\nsaid it come from eatin\' rats and some from eatin\' nothin\'. Some say the\nAsiatics brought it from some \'I place, Thibet, I think, where it never\ndid nobody much \'arm. All I know is it come after the Famine. And the\nFamine come after the Penic and the Penic come after the War.\"\n\nTeddy thought. \"What made the Purple Death?\" he asked.\n\n\"\'Aven\'t I tole you!\"\n\n\"But why did they \'ave a Penic?\"\n\n\"They \'ad it.\"\n\n\"But why did they start the War?\"\n\n\"They couldn\'t stop theirselves. \'Aving them airships made \'em.\"\n\n\"And \'ow did the War end?\"\n\n\"Lord knows if it\'s ended, boy,\" said old Tom. \"Lord knows if it\'s\nended. There\'s been travellers through \'ere--there was a chap only two\nsummers ago--say it\'s goin\' on still. They say there\'s bands of people\nup north who keep on with it and people in Germany and China and \'Merica\nand places. \'E said they still got flying-machines and gas and things.\nBut we \'aven\'t seen nothin\' in the air now for seven years, and nobody\n\'asn\'t come nigh of us. Last we saw was a crumpled sort of airship going\naway--over there. It was a littleish-sized thing and lopsided, as though\nit \'ad something the matter with it.\"\n\nHe pointed, and came to a stop at a gap in the fence, the vestiges of\nthe old fence from which, in the company of his neighbour Mr. Stringer\nthe milkman, he had once watched the South of England Aero Club\'s\nSaturday afternoon ascents. Dim memories, it may be, of that particular\nafternoon returned to him.\n\n\"There, down there, where all that rus\' looks so red and bright, that\'s\nthe gas-works.\"\n\n\"What\'s gas?\" asked the little boy.\n\n\"Oh, a hairy sort of nothin\' what you put in balloons to make \'em go up.\nAnd you used to burn it till the \'lectricity come.\"\n\nThe little boy tried vainly to imagine gas on the basis of these\nparticulars. Then his thoughts reverted to a previous topic.\n\n\"But why didn\'t they end the War?\"\n\n\"Obstinacy. Everybody was getting \'urt, but everybody was \'urtin\' and\neverybody was \'igh-spirited and patriotic, and so they smeshed up\nthings instead. They jes\' went on smeshin\'. And afterwards they jes\' got\ndesp\'rite and savige.\"\n\n\"It ought to \'ave ended,\" said the little boy.\n\n\"It didn\'t ought to \'ave begun,\" said old Tom, \"But people was proud.\nPeople was la-dy-da-ish and uppish and proud. Too much meat and drink\nthey \'ad. Give in--not them! And after a bit nobody arst \'em to give in.\nNobody arst \'em....\"\n\nHe sucked his old gums thoughtfully, and his gaze strayed away across\nthe valley to where the shattered glass of the Crystal Palace\nglittered in the sun. A dim large sense of waste and irrevocable lost\nopportunities pervaded his mind. He repeated his ultimate judgment\nupon all these things, obstinately, slowly, and conclusively, his final\nsaying upon the matter.\n\n\"You can say what you like,\" he said. \"It didn\'t ought ever to \'ave\nbegun.\"\n\nHe said it simply--somebody somewhere ought to have stopped something,\nbut who or how or why were all beyond his ken.'"