by H. G. Wells
CHAPTER IV. THE GERMAN AIR-FLEET
1
Of all the productions of the human imagination that make the world inwhich Mr. Bert Smallways lived confusingly wonderful, there was nonequite so strange, so headlong and disturbing, so noisy and persuasiveand dangerous, as the modernisations of patriotism produced by imperialand international politics. In the soul of all men is a liking for kind,a pride in one's own atmosphere, a tenderness for one's Mother speechand one's familiar land. Before the coming of the Scientific Agethis group of gentle and noble emotions had been a fine factor in theequipment of every worthy human being, a fine factor that had its lessamiable aspect in a usually harmless hostility to strange people, and ausually harmless detraction of strange lands. But with the wild rush ofchange in the pace, scope, materials, scale, and possibilities of humanlife that then occurred, the old boundaries, the old seclusions andseparations were violently broken down. All the old settled mentalhabits and traditions of men found themselves not simply confronted bynew conditions, but by constantly renewed and changing new conditions.They had no chance of adapting themselves. They were annihilated orperverted or inflamed beyond recognition.
Bert Smallways' grandfather, in the days when Bun Hill was a villageunder the sway of Sir Peter Bone's parent, had "known his place" tothe uttermost farthing, touched his hat to his betters, despised andcondescended to his inferiors, and hadn't changed an idea from thecradle to the grave. He was Kentish and English, and that meant hops,beer, dog-rose's, and the sort of sunshine that was best in the world.Newspapers and politics and visits to "Lunnon" weren't for the likes ofhim. Then came the change. These earlier chapters have given an idea ofwhat happened to Bun Hill, and how the flood of novel things had pouredover its devoted rusticity. Bert Smallways was only one of countlessmillions in Europe and America and Asia who, instead of being bornrooted in the soil, were born struggling in a torrent they never clearlyunderstood. All the faiths of their fathers had been taken by surprise,and startled into the strangest forms and reactions. Particularly didthe fine old tradition of patriotism get perverted and distorted in therush of the new times. Instead of the sturdy establishment in prejudiceof Bert's grandfather, to whom the word "Frenchified" was the ultimateterm of contempt, there flowed through Bert's brain a squitteringsuccession of thinly violent ideas about German competition, aboutthe Yellow Danger, about the Black Peril, about the White Man'sBurthen--that is to say, Bert's preposterous right to muddle further thenaturally very muddled politics of the entirely similar little cads tohimself (except for a smear of brown) who smoked cigarettes and rodebicycles in Buluwayo, Kingston (Jamaica), or Bombay. These were Bert's"Subject Races," and he was ready to die--by proxy in the person of anyone who cared to enlist--to maintain his hold upon that right. It kepthim awake at nights to think that he might lose it.
The essential fact of the politics of the age in which Bert Smallwayslived--the age that blundered at last into the catastrophe of the War inthe Air--was a very simple one, if only people had had the intelligenceto be simple about it. The development of Science had altered the scaleof human affairs. By means of rapid mechanical traction, it had broughtmen nearer together, so much nearer socially, economically, physically,that the old separations into nations and kingdoms were no longerpossible, a newer, wider synthesis was not only needed, but imperativelydemanded. Just as the once independent dukedoms of France had to fuseinto a nation, so now the nations had to adapt themselves to a widercoalescence, they had to keep what was precious and possible, andconcede what was obsolete and dangerous. A saner world would haveperceived this patent need for a reasonable synthesis, would havediscussed it temperately, achieved and gone on to organise the greatcivilisation that was manifestly possible to mankind. The world ofBert Smallways did nothing of the sort. Its national governments, itsnational interests, would not hear of anything so obvious; they weretoo suspicious of each other, too wanting in generous imaginations. Theybegan to behave like ill-bred people in a crowded public car, to squeezeagainst one another, elbow, thrust, dispute and quarrel. Vain topoint out to them that they had only to rearrange themselves to becomfortable. Everywhere, all over the world, the historian of the earlytwentieth century finds the same thing, the flow and rearrangementof human affairs inextricably entangled by the old areas, the oldprejudices and a sort of heated irascible stupidity, and everywherecongested nations in inconvenient areas, slopping population and produceinto each other, annoying each other with tariffs, and every possiblecommercial vexation, and threatening each other with navies and armiesthat grew every year more portentous.
It is impossible now to estimate how much of the intellectual andphysical energy of the world was wasted in military preparation andequipment, but it was an enormous proportion. Great Britain spent uponarmy and navy money and capacity, that directed into the channelsof physical culture and education would have made the British thearistocracy of the world. Her rulers could have kept the wholepopulation learning and exercising up to the age of eighteen and madea broad-chested and intelligent man of every Bert Smallways in theislands, had they given the resources they spent in war material to themaking of men. Instead of which they waggled flags at him until he wasfourteen, incited him to cheer, and then turned him out of school tobegin that career of private enterprise we have compactly recorded.France achieved similar imbecilities; Germany was, if possible worse;Russia under the waste and stresses of militarism festered towardsbankruptcy and decay. All Europe was producing big guns and countlessswarms of little Smallways. The Asiatic peoples had been forced inself-defence into a like diversion of the new powers science had broughtthem. On the eve of the outbreak of the war there were six great powersin the world and a cluster of smaller ones, each armed to the teethand straining every nerve to get ahead of the others in deadlinessof equipment and military efficiency. The great powers were first theUnited States, a nation addicted to commerce, but roused to militarynecessities by the efforts of Germany to expand into South America, andby the natural consequences of her own unwary annexations of land in thevery teeth of Japan. She maintained two immense fleets east and west,and internally she was in violent conflict between Federal and Stategovernments upon the question of universal service in a defensivemilitia. Next came the great alliance of Eastern Asia, a close-knitcoalescence of China and Japan, advancing with rapid strides year byyear to predominance in the world's affairs. Then the German alliancestill struggled to achieve its dream of imperial expansion, and itsimposition of the German language upon a forcibly united Europe. Thesewere the three most spirited and aggressive powers in the world. Farmore pacific was the British Empire, perilously scattered over theglobe, and distracted now by insurrectionary movements in Irelandand among all its Subject Races. It had given these subject racescigarettes, boots, bowler hats, cricket, race meetings, cheap revolvers,petroleum, the factory system of industry, halfpenny newspapers inboth English and the vernacular, inexpensive university degrees,motor-bicycles and electric trams; it had produced a considerableliterature expressing contempt for the Subject Races, and renderedit freely accessible to them, and it had been content to believe thatnothing would result from these stimulants because somebody once wrote"the immemorial east"; and also, in the inspired words of Kipling--
East is east and west is west, And never the twain shall meet.
Instead of which, Egypt, India, and the subject countries generally hadproduced new generations in a state of passionate indignation and theutmost energy, activity and modernity. The governing class in GreatBritain was slowly adapting itself to a new conception, of the SubjectRaces as waking peoples, and finding its efforts to keep the Empiretogether under these, strains and changing ideas greatly impeded bythe entirely sporting spirit with which Bert Smallways at home (by themillion) cast his vote, and by the tendency of his more highlycoloured equivalents to be disrespectful to irascible officials. Theirimpertinence was excessive; it was no mere stone-throwing and shouting.They would quote Burns at them and Mill an
d Darwin and confute them inarguments.
Even more pacific than the British Empire were France and its allies,the Latin powers, heavily armed states indeed, but reluctant warriors,and in many ways socially and politically leading western civilisation.Russia was a pacific power perforce, divided within itself, torn betweenrevolutionaries and reactionaries who were equally incapable of socialreconstruction, and so sinking towards a tragic disorder of chronicpolitical vendetta. Wedged in among these portentous larger bulks,swayed and threatened by them, the smaller states of the worldmaintained a precarious independence, each keeping itself armed asdangerously as its utmost ability could contrive.
So it came about that in every country a great and growing body ofenergetic and inventive men was busied either for offensive or defensiveends, in elaborating the apparatus of war, until the accumulatingtensions should reach the breaking-point. Each power sought to keep itspreparations secret, to hold new weapons in reserve, to anticipate andlearn the preparations of its rivals. The feeling of danger from freshdiscoveries affected the patriotic imagination of every people in theworld. Now it was rumoured the British had an overwhelming gun, now theFrench an invincible rifle, now the Japanese a new explosive, now theAmericans a submarine that would drive every ironclad from the seas.Each time there would be a war panic.
The strength and heart of the nations was given to the thought of war,and yet the mass of their citizens was a teeming democracy as heedlessof and unfitted for fighting, mentally, morally, physically, as anypopulation has ever been--or, one ventures to add, could ever be. Thatwas the paradox of the time. It was a period altogether unique inthe world's history. The apparatus of warfare, the art and method offighting, changed absolutely every dozen years in a stupendous progresstowards perfection, and people grew less and less warlike, and there wasno war.
And then at last it came. It came as a surprise to all the world becauseits real causes were hidden. Relations were strained between Germanyand the United States because of the intense exasperation of a tariffconflict and the ambiguous attitude of the former power towards theMonroe Doctrine, and they were strained between the United States andJapan because of the perennial citizenship question. But in both casesthese were standing causes of offence. The real deciding cause, it isnow known, was the perfecting of the Pforzheim engine by Germany and theconsequent possibility of a rapid and entirely practicable airship.At that time Germany was by far the most efficient power in the world,better organised for swift and secret action, better equipped with theresources of modern science, and with her official and administrativeclasses at a higher level of education and training. These things sheknew, and she exaggerated that knowledge to the pitch of contempt forthe secret counsels of her neighbours. It may be that with the habit ofself-confidence her spying upon them had grown less thorough. Moreover,she had a tradition of unsentimental and unscrupulous action thatvitiated her international outlook profoundly. With the coming of thesenew weapons her collective intelligence thrilled with the sense that nowher moment had come. Once again in the history of progress it seemed sheheld the decisive weapon. Now she might strike and conquer--before theothers had anything but experiments in the air.
Particularly she must strike America, swiftly, because there, ifanywhere, lay the chance of an aerial rival. It was known that Americapossessed a flying-machine of considerable practical value, developedout of the Wright model; but it was not supposed that the Washington WarOffice had made any wholesale attempts to create an aerial navy. It wasnecessary to strike before they could do so. France had a fleet ofslow navigables, several dating from 1908, that could make nopossible headway against the new type. They had been built solely forreconnoitring purposes on the eastern frontier, they were mostlytoo small to carry more than a couple of dozen men without arms orprovisions, and not one could do forty miles an hour. Great Britain,it seemed, in an access of meanness, temporised and wrangled with theimperial spirited Butteridge and his extraordinary invention. That alsowas not in play--and could not be for some months at the earliest.From Asia there, came no sign. The Germans explained this by saying theyellow peoples were without invention. No other competitor was worthconsidering. "Now or never," said the Germans--"now or never we mayseize the air--as once the British seized the seas! While all the otherpowers are still experimenting."
Swift and systematic and secret were their preparations, and their planmost excellent. So far as their knowledge went, America was the onlydangerous possibility; America, which was also now the leadingtrade rival of Germany and one of the chief barriers to her Imperialexpansion. So at once they would strike at America. They would fling agreat force across the Atlantic heavens and bear America down unwarnedand unprepared.
Altogether it was a well-imagined and most hopeful and spiritedenterprise, having regard to the information in the possession of theGerman government. The chances of it being a successful surprise werevery great. The airship and the flying-machine were very differentthings from ironclads, which take a couple of years to build. Givenhands, given plant, they could be made innumerably in a few weeks.Once the needful parks and foundries were organised, air-ships andDrachenflieger could be poured into the sky. Indeed, when the timecame, they did pour into the sky like, as a bitter French writer put it,flies roused from filth.
The attack upon America was to be the first move in this tremendousgame. But no sooner had it started than instantly the aeronautic parkswere to proceed to put together and inflate the second fleet which wasto dominate Europe and manoeuvre significantly over London, Paris, Rome,St. Petersburg, or wherever else its moral effect was required. A WorldSurprise it was to be--no less a World Conquest; and it is wonderful hownear the calmly adventurous minds that planned it came to succeeding intheir colossal design.
Von Sternberg was the Moltke of this War in the Air, but it was thecurious hard romanticism of Prince Karl Albert that won over thehesitating Emperor to the scheme. Prince Karl Albert was indeed thecentral figure of the world drama. He was the darling of the Imperialistspirit in German, and the ideal of the new aristocratic feeling--thenew Chivalry, as it was called--that followed the overthrow ofSocialism through its internal divisions and lack of discipline, andthe concentration of wealth in the hands of a few great families. He wascompared by obsequious flatterers to the Black Prince, to Alcibiades, tothe young Caesar. To many he seemed Nietzsche's Overman revealed. He wasbig and blond and virile, and splendidly non-moral. The first great featthat startled Europe, and almost brought about a new Trojan war, washis abduction of the Princess Helena of Norway and his blank refusal tomarry her. Then followed his marriage with Gretchen Krass, a Swiss girlof peerless beauty. Then came the gallant rescue, which almost cost himhis life, of three drowning sailors whose boat had upset in the sea nearHeligoland. For that and his victory over the American yacht Defender,C.C.I., the Emperor forgave him and placed him in control of the newaeronautic arm of the German forces. This he developed with marvellousenergy and ability, being resolved, as he said, to give to Germany landand sea and sky. The national passion for aggression found in him itssupreme exponent, and achieved through him its realisation in thisastounding war. But his fascination was more than national; all over theworld his ruthless strength dominated minds as the Napoleonic legend haddominated minds. Englishmen turned in disgust from the slow, complex,civilised methods of their national politics to this uncompromising,forceful figure. Frenchmen believed in him. Poems were written to him inAmerican.
He made the war.
Quite equally with the rest of the world, the general German populationwas taken by surprise by the swift vigour of the Imperial government.A considerable literature of military forecasts, beginning as early as1906 with Rudolf Martin, the author not merely of a brilliant book ofanticipations, but of a proverb, "The future of Germany lies in theair," had, however, partially prepared the German imagination for somesuch enterprise.
2
Of all these world-forces and gigantic designs Bert Smallways knewnothing until he foun
d himself in the very focus of it all and gapeddown amazed on the spectacle of that giant herd of air-ships. Each oneseemed as long as the Strand, and as big about as Trafalgar Square. Somemust have been a third of a mile in length. He had never before seenanything so vast and disciplined as this tremendous park. For the firsttime in his life he really had an intimation of the extraordinary andquite important things of which a contemporary may go in ignorance. Hehad always clung to the illusion that Germans were fat, absurd men, whosmoked china pipes, and were addicted to knowledge and horseflesh andsauerkraut and indigestible things generally.
His bird's-eye view was quite transitory. He ducked at the first shot;and directly his balloon began to drop, his mind ran confusedly upon howhe might explain himself, and whether he should pretend to be Butteridgeor not. "O Lord!" he groaned, in an agony of indecision. Then his eyecaught his sandals, and he felt a spasm of self-disgust. "They'll thinkI'm a bloomin' idiot," he said, and then it was he rose up desperatelyand threw over the sand-bag and provoked the second and third shots.
It flashed into his head, as he cowered in the bottom of the car, thathe might avoid all sorts of disagreeable and complicated explanations bypretending to be mad.
That was his last idea before the airships seemed to rush up about himas if to look at him, and his car hit the ground and bounded and pitchedhim out on his head....
He awoke to find himself famous, and to hear a voice crying,"Booteraidge! Ja! Ja! Herr Booteraidge! Selbst!"
He was lying on a little patch of grass beside one of the main avenuesof the aeronautic park. The airships receded down a great vista, animmense perspective, and the blunt prow of each was adorned with a blackeagle of a hundred feet or so spread. Down the other side of the avenueran a series of gas generators, and big hose-pipes trailed everywhereacross the intervening space. Close at hand was his now nearly deflatedballoon and the car on its side looking minutely small, a mere brokentoy, a shrivelled bubble, in contrast with the gigantic bulk of thenearer airship. This he saw almost end-on, rising like a cliff andsloping forward towards its fellow on the other side so as to overshadowthe alley between them. There was a crowd of excited people about him,big men mostly in tight uniforms. Everybody was talking, and severalwere shouting, in German; he knew that because they splashed andaspirated sounds like startled kittens.
Only one phrase, repeated again and again could he recognize--the nameof "Herr Booteraidge."
"Gollys!" said Bert. "They've spotted it."
"Besser," said some one, and some rapid German followed.
He perceived that close at hand was a field telephone, and that a tallofficer in blue was talking thereat about him. Another stood closebeside him with the portfolio of drawings and photographs in his hand.They looked round at him.
"Do you spik Cherman, Herr Booteraidge?"
Bert decided that he had better be dazed. He did his best to seemthoroughly dazed. "Where AM I?" he asked.
Volubility prevailed. "Der Prinz," was mentioned. A bugle sounded faraway, and its call was taken up by one nearer, and then by one close athand. This seemed to increase the excitement greatly. A mono-rail carbumbled past. The telephone bell rang passionately, and the tall officerseemed to engage in a heated altercation. Then he approached the groupabout Bert, calling out something about "mitbringen."
An earnest-faced, emaciated man with a white moustache appealed to Bert."Herr Booteraidge, sir, we are chust to start!"
"Where am I?" Bert repeated.
Some one shook him by the other shoulder. "Are you Herr Booteraidge?" heasked.
"Herr Booteraidge, we are chust to start!" repeated the white moustache,and then helplessly, "What is de goot? What can we do?"
The officer from the telephone repeated his sentence about "Der Prinz"and "mitbringen." The man with the moustache stared for a moment,grasped an idea and became violently energetic, stood up and bawleddirections at unseen people. Questions were asked, and the doctor atBert's side answered, "Ja! Ja!" several times, also something about"Kopf." With a certain urgency he got Bert rather unwillingly to hisfeet. Two huge soldiers in grey advanced upon Bert and seized hold ofhim. "'Ullo!" said Bert, startled. "What's up?"
"It is all right," the doctor explained; "they are to carry you."
"Where?" asked Bert, unanswered.
"Put your arms roundt their--hals--round them!"
"Yes! but where?"
"Hold tight!"
Before Bert could decide to say anything more he was whisked up by thetwo soldiers. They joined hands to seat him, and his arms were put abouttheir necks. "Vorwarts!" Some one ran before him with the portfolio, andhe was borne rapidly along the broad avenue between the gas generatorsand the airships, rapidly and on the whole smoothly except that once ortwice his bearers stumbled over hose-pipes and nearly let him down.
He was wearing Mr. Butteridge's Alpine cap, and his little shoulderswere in Mr. Butteridge's fur-lined overcoat, and he had responded to Mr.Butteridge's name. The sandals dangled helplessly. Gaw! Everybody seemedin a devil of a hurry. Why? He was carried joggling and gaping throughthe twilight, marvelling beyond measure.
The systematic arrangement of wide convenient spaces, the quantitiesof business-like soldiers everywhere, the occasional neat piles ofmaterial, the ubiquitous mono-rail lines, and the towering ship-likehulls about him, reminded him a little of impressions he had got asa boy on a visit to Woolwich Dockyard. The whole camp reflected thecolossal power of modern science that had created it. A peculiarstrangeness was produced by the lowness of the electric light, whichlay upon the ground, casting all shadows upwards and making a grotesqueshadow figure of himself and his bearers on the airship sides, fusingall three of them into a monstrous animal with attenuated legs and animmense fan-like humped body. The lights were on the ground becauseas far as possible all poles and standards had been dispensed with toprevent complications when the airships rose.
It was deep twilight now, a tranquil blue-skyed evening; everything roseout from the splashes of light upon the ground into dim translucenttall masses; within the cavities of the airships small inspectinglamps glowed like cloud-veiled stars, and made them seem marvellouslyunsubstantial. Each airship had its name in black letters on white oneither flank, and forward the Imperial eagle sprawled, an overwhelmingbird in the dimness.
Bugles sounded, mono-rail cars of quiet soldiers slithered burblingby. The cabins under the heads of the airships were being lit up; doorsopened in them, and revealed padded passages.
Now and then a voice gave directions to workers indistinctly seen.
There was a matter of sentinels, gangways and a long narrow passage, ascramble over a disorder of baggage, and then Bert found himself loweredto the ground and standing in the doorway of a spacious cabin--it wasperhaps ten feet square and eight high, furnished with crimson paddingand aluminium. A tall, bird-like young man with a small head, along nose, and very pale hair, with his hands full of things likeshaving-strops, boot-trees, hair-brushes, and toilet tidies, was sayingthings about Gott and thunder and Dummer Booteraidge as Bert entered. Hewas apparently an evicted occupant. Then he vanished, and Bert was lyingback on a couch in the corner with a pillow under his head and the doorof the cabin shut upon him. He was alone. Everybody had hurried outagain astonishingly.
"Gollys!" said Bert. "What next?"
He stared about him at the room.
"Butteridge! Shall I try to keep it up, or shan't I?"
The room he was in puzzled him. "'Tisn't a prison and 'tisn't a norfis?"Then the old trouble came uppermost. "I wish to 'eaven I 'adn't thesesilly sandals on," he cried querulously to the universe. "They give thewhole blessed show away."
3
His door was flung open, and a compact young man in uniform appeared,carrying Mr. Butteridge's portfolio, rucksac, and shaving-glass.
"I say!" he said in faultless English as he entered. He had a beamingface, and a sort of pinkish blond hair. "Fancy you being Butteridge." Heslapped Bert's meagre luggage down.
&nbs
p; "We'd have started," he said, "in another half-hour! You didn't giveyourself much time!"
He surveyed Bert curiously. His gaze rested for a fraction of a momenton the sandals. "You ought to have come on your flying-machine, Mr.Butteridge."
He didn't wait for an answer. "The Prince says I've got to look afteryou. Naturally he can't see you now, but he thinks your coming'sprovidential. Last grace of Heaven. Like a sign. Hullo!"
He stood still and listened.
Outside there was a going to and fro of feet, a sound of distant buglessuddenly taken up and echoed close at hand, men called out in loud tonesshort, sharp, seemingly vital things, and were answered distantly. Abell jangled, and feet went down the corridor. Then came a stillnessmore distracting than sound, and then a great gurgling and rushing andsplashing of water. The young man's eyebrows lifted. He hesitated, anddashed out of the room. Presently came a stupendous bang to vary thenoises without, then a distant cheering. The young man re-appeared.
"They're running the water out of the ballonette already."
"What water?" asked Bert.
"The water that anchored us. Artful dodge. Eh?"
Bert tried to take it in.
"Of course!" said the compact young man. "You don't understand."
A gentle quivering crept upon Bert's senses. "That's the engine," saidthe compact young man approvingly. "Now we shan't be long."
Another long listening interval.
The cabin swayed. "By Jove! we're starting already;" he cried. "We'restarting!"
"Starting!" cried Bert, sitting up. "Where?"
But the young man was out of the room again. There were noises of Germanin the passage, and other nerve-shaking sounds.
The swaying increased. The young man reappeared. "We're off, rightenough!"
"I say!" said Bert, "where are we starting? I wish you'd explain. What'sthis place? I don't understand."
"What!" cried the young man, "you don't understand?"
"No. I'm all dazed-like from that crack on the nob I got. Where ARE we?WHERE are we starting?"
"Don't you know where you are--what this is?"
"Not a bit of it! What's all the swaying and the row?"
"What a lark!" cried the young man. "I say! What a thundering lark!Don't you know? We're off to America, and you haven't realised. You'vejust caught us by a neck. You're on the blessed old flagship with thePrince. You won't miss anything. Whatever's on, you bet the Vaterlandwill be there."
"Us!--off to America?"
"Ra--ther!"
"In an airship?"
"What do YOU think?"
"Me! going to America on an airship! After that balloon! 'Ere! I say--Idon't want to go! I want to walk about on my legs. Let me get out! Ididn't understand."
He made a dive for the door.
The young man arrested Bert with a gesture, took hold of a strap, liftedup a panel in the padded wall, and a window appeared. "Look!" he said.Side by side they looked out.
"Gaw!" said Bert. "We're going up!"
"We are!" said the young man, cheerfully; "fast!"
They were rising in the air smoothly and quietly, and moving slowlyto the throb of the engine athwart the aeronautic park. Down below itstretched, dimly geometrical in the darkness, picked out at regularintervals by glow-worm spangles of light. One black gap in the longline of grey, round-backed airships marked the position from which theVaterland had come. Beside it a second monster now rose softly, releasedfrom its bonds and cables into the air. Then, taking a beautifully exactdistance, a third ascended, and then a fourth.
"Too late, Mr. Butteridge!" the young man remarked. "We're off! Idaresay it is a bit of a shock to you, but there you are! The Princesaid you'd have to come."
"Look 'ere," said Bert. "I really am dazed. What's this thing? Where arewe going?"
"This, Mr. Butteridge," said the young man, taking pains to be explicit,"is an airship. It's the flagship of Prince Karl Albert. This is theGerman air-fleet, and it is going over to America, to give that spiritedpeople 'what for.' The only thing we were at all uneasy about was yourinvention. And here you are!"
"But!--you a German?" asked Bert.
"Lieutenant Kurt. Luft-lieutenant Kurt, at your service."
"But you speak English!"
"Mother was English--went to school in England. Afterwards, Rhodesscholar. German none the less for that. Detailed for the present, Mr.Butteridge, to look after you. You're shaken by your fall. It's allright, really. They're going to buy your machine and everything. Yousit down, and take it quite calmly. You'll soon get the hang of theposition."
4
Bert sat down on the locker, collecting his mind, and the young mantalked to him about the airship.
He was really a very tactful young man indeed, in a natural sort of way."Daresay all this is new to you," he said; "not your sort of machine.These cabins aren't half bad."
He got up and walked round the little apartment, showing its points.
"Here is the bed," he said, whipping down a couch from the wall andthrowing it back again with a click. "Here are toilet things," and heopened a neatly arranged cupboard. "Not much washing. No water we'vegot; no water at all except for drinking. No baths or anything untilwe get to America and land. Rub over with loofah. One pint of hot forshaving. That's all. In the locker below you are rugs and blankets; youwill need them presently. They say it gets cold. I don't know. Neverbeen up before. Except a little work with gliders--which is mostlygoing down. Three-quarters of the chaps in the fleet haven't. Here's afolding-chair and table behind the door. Compact, eh?"
He took the chair and balanced it on his little finger. "Pretty light,eh? Aluminium and magnesium alloy and a vacuum inside. All thesecushions stuffed with hydrogen. Foxy! The whole ship's like that. Andnot a man in the fleet, except the Prince and one or two others, overeleven stone. Couldn't sweat the Prince, you know. We'll go all over thething to-morrow. I'm frightfully keen on it."
He beamed at Bert. "You DO look young," he remarked. "I always thoughtyou'd be an old man with a beard--a sort of philosopher. I don't knowwhy one should expect clever people always to be old. I do."
Bert parried that compliment a little awkwardly, and then the lieutenantwas struck with the riddle why Herr Butteridge had not come in his ownflying machine.
"It's a long story," said Bert. "Look here!" he said abruptly, "I wishyou'd lend me a pair of slippers, or something. I'm regular sick ofthese sandals. They're rotten things. I've been trying them for afriend."
"Right O!"
The ex-Rhodes scholar whisked out of the room and reappeared with aconsiderable choice of footwear--pumps, cloth bath-slippers, and apurple pair adorned with golden sun-flowers.
But these he repented of at the last moment.
"I don't even wear them myself," he said. "Only brought 'em in the zealof the moment." He laughed confidentially. "Had 'em worked for me--inOxford. By a friend. Take 'em everywhere."
So Bert chose the pumps.
The lieutenant broke into a cheerful snigger. "Here we are trying onslippers," he said, "and the world going by like a panorama below.Rather a lark, eh? Look!"
Bert peeped with him out of the window, looking from the brightpettiness of the red-and-silver cabin into a dark immensity. The landbelow, except for a lake, was black and featureless, and the otherairships were hidden. "See more outside," said the lieutenant. "Let'sgo! There's a sort of little gallery."
He led the way into the long passage, which was lit by one smallelectric light, past some notices in German, to an open balcony and alight ladder and gallery of metal lattice overhanging, empty space. Bertfollowed his leader down to the gallery slowly and cautiously. Fromit he was able to watch the wonderful spectacle of the first air-fleetflying through the night. They flew in a wedge-shaped formation, theVaterland highest and leading, the tail receding into the corners ofthe sky. They flew in long, regular undulations, great dark fish-likeshapes, showing hardly any light at all, the engines making athrob-throb-throbbing sound t
hat was very audible out on the gallery.They were going at a level of five or six thousand feet, and risingsteadily. Below, the country lay silent, a clear darkness dotted andlined out with clusters of furnaces, and the lit streets of a group ofbig towns. The world seemed to lie in a bowl; the overhanging bulk ofthe airship above hid all but the lowest levels of the sky.
They watched the landscape for a space.
"Jolly it must be to invent things," said the lieutenant suddenly. "Howdid you come to think of your machine first?"
"Worked it out," said Bert, after a pause. "Jest ground away at it."
"Our people are frightfully keen on you. They thought the British hadgot you. Weren't the British keen?"
"In a way," said Bert. "Still--it's a long story."
"I think it's an immense thing--to invent. I couldn't invent a thing tosave my life."
They both fell silent, watching the darkened world and following theirthoughts until a bugle summoned them to a belated dinner. Bert wassuddenly alarmed. "Don't you 'ave to dress and things?" he said. "I'vealways been too hard at Science and things to go into Society and allthat."
"No fear," said Kurt. "Nobody's got more than the clothes they wear.We're travelling light. You might perhaps take your overcoat off.They've an electric radiator each end of the room."
And so presently Bert found himself sitting to eat in the presence ofthe "German Alexander"--that great and puissant Prince, Prince KarlAlbert, the War Lord, the hero of two hemispheres. He was a handsome,blond man, with deep-set eyes, a snub nose, upturned moustache, and longwhite hands, a strange-looking man. He sat higher than the others, undera black eagle with widespread wings and the German Imperial flags; hewas, as it were, enthroned, and it struck Bert greatly that as he ate hedid not look at people, but over their heads like one who sees visions.Twenty officers of various ranks stood about the table--and Bert. Theyall seemed extremely curious to see the famous Butteridge, and theirastonishment at his appearance was ill-controlled. The Prince gave hima dignified salutation, to which, by an inspiration, he bowed. Standingnext the Prince was a brown-faced, wrinkled man with silver spectaclesand fluffy, dingy-grey side-whiskers, who regarded Bert with a peculiarand disconcerting attention. The company sat after ceremonies Bert couldnot understand. At the other end of the table was the bird-faced officerBert had dispossessed, still looking hostile and whispering about Bertto his neighbour. Two soldiers waited. The dinner was a plain one--asoup, some fresh mutton, and cheese--and there was very little talk.
A curious solemnity indeed brooded over every one. Partly this wasreaction after the intense toil and restrained excitement of starting;partly it was the overwhelming sense of strange new experiences, ofportentous adventure. The Prince was lost in thought. He roused himselfto drink to the Emperor in champagne, and the company cried "Hoch!" likemen repeating responses in church.
No smoking was permitted, but some of the officers went down to thelittle open gallery to chew tobacco. No lights whatever were safeamidst that bundle of inflammable things. Bert suddenly fell yawningand shivering. He was overwhelmed by a sense of his own insignificanceamidst these great rushing monsters of the air. He felt life was too bigfor him--too much for him altogether.
He said something to Kurt about his head, went up the steep ladder fromthe swaying little gallery into the airship again, and so, as if it werea refuge, to bed.
5
Bert slept for a time, and then his sleep was broken by dreams. Mostlyhe was fleeing from formless terrors down an interminable passage inan airship--a passage paved at first with ravenous trap-doors, and thenwith openwork canvas of the most careless description.
"Gaw!" said Bert, turning over after his seventh fall through infinitespace that night.
He sat up in the darkness and nursed his knees. The progress of theairship was not nearly so smooth as a balloon; he could feel a regularswaying up, up, up and then down, down, down, and the throbbing andtremulous quiver of the engines.
His mind began to teem with memories--more memories and more.
Through them, like a struggling swimmer in broken water, came theperplexing question, what am I to do to-morrow? To-morrow, Kurt had toldhim, the Prince's secretary, the Graf Von Winterfeld, would come to himand discuss his flying-machine, and then he would see the Prince. Hewould have to stick it out now that he was Butteridge, and sellhis invention. And then, if they found him out! He had a vision ofinfuriated Butteridges.... Suppose after all he owned up? Pretended itwas their misunderstanding? He began to scheme devices for selling thesecret and circumventing Butteridge.
What should he ask for the thing? Somehow twenty thousand pounds struckhim as about the sum indicated.
He fell into that despondency that lies in wait in the small hours. Hehad got too big a job on--too big a job....
Memories swamped his scheming.
"Where was I this time last night?"
He recapitulated his evenings tediously and lengthily. Last night hehad been up above the clouds in Butteridge's balloon. He thought of themoment when he dropped through them and saw the cold twilight sea closebelow. He still remembered that disagreeable incident with a nightmarevividness. And the night before he and Grubb had been looking for cheaplodgings at Littlestone in Kent. How remote that seemed now. It might beyears ago. For the first time he thought of his fellow Desert Dervish,left with the two red-painted bicycles on Dymchurch sands. "'E won'tmake much of a show of it, not without me. Any'ow 'e did 'ave thetreasury--such as it was--in his pocket!"... The night before thatwas Bank Holiday night and they had sat discussing their minstrelenterprise, drawing up a programme and rehearsing steps. And thenight before was Whit Sunday. "Lord!" cried Bert, "what a doingthat motor-bicycle give me!" He recalled the empty flapping of theeviscerated cushion, the feeling of impotence as the flames rose again.From among the confused memories of that tragic flare one little figureemerged very bright and poignantly sweet, Edna, crying back reluctantlyfrom the departing motor-car, "See you to-morrer, Bert?"
Other memories of Edna clustered round that impression. They led Bert'smind step by step to an agreeable state that found expression in "I'llmarry 'ER if she don't look out." And then in a flash it followed in hismind that if he sold the Butteridge secret he could! Suppose after allhe did get twenty thousand pounds; such sums have been paid! With thathe could buy house and garden, buy new clothes beyond dreaming, buy amotor, travel, have every delight of the civilised life as he knew it,for himself and Edna. Of course, risks were involved. "I'll 'ave oldButteridge on my track, I expect!"
He meditated upon that. He declined again to despondency. As yet hewas only in the beginning of the adventure. He had still to deliver thegoods and draw the cash. And before that--Just now he was by no meanson his way home. He was flying off to America to fight there. "Notmuch fighting," he considered; "all our own way." Still, if a shell didhappen to hit the Vaterland on the underside!...
"S'pose I ought to make my will."
He lay back for some time composing wills--chiefly in favour of Edna. Hehad settled now it was to be twenty thousand pounds. He left a numberof minor legacies. The wills became more and more meandering andextravagant....
He woke from the eighth repetition of his nightmare fall through space."This flying gets on one's nerves," he said.
He could feel the airship diving down, down, down, then slowly swingingto up, up, up. Throb, throb, throb, throb, quivered the engine.
He got up presently and wrapped himself about with Mr. Butteridge'sovercoat and all the blankets, for the air was very keen. Then he peepedout of the window to see a grey dawn breaking over clouds, then turnedup his light and bolted his door, sat down to the table, and producedhis chest-protector.
He smoothed the crumpled plans with his hand, and contemplated them.Then he referred to the other drawings in the portfolio. Twenty thousandpounds. If he worked it right! It was worth trying, anyhow.
Presently he opened the drawer in which Kurt had put paper andwriting-materials.
&nbs
p; Bert Smallways was by no means a stupid person, and up to a certainlimit he had not been badly educated. His board school had taught himto draw up to certain limits, taught him to calculate and understand aspecification. If at that point his country had tired of its efforts,and handed him over unfinished to scramble for a living in an atmosphereof advertisments and individual enterprise, that was really not hisfault. He was as his State had made him, and the reader must not imaginebecause he was a little Cockney cad, that he was absolutely incapableof grasping the idea of the Butteridge flying-machine. But he found itstiff and perplexing. His motor-bicycle and Grubb's experiments and the"mechanical drawing" he had done in standard seven all helped him out;and, moreover, the maker of these drawings, whoever he was, had beenanxious to make his intentions plain. Bert copied sketches, he madenotes, he made a quite tolerable and intelligent copy of the essentialdrawings and sketches of the others. Then he fell into a meditation uponthem.
At last he rose with a sigh, folded up the originals that had formerlybeen in his chest-protector and put them into the breast-pocket of hisjacket, and then very carefully deposited the copies he had made in theplace of the originals. He had no very clear plan in his mind in doingthis, except that he hated the idea of altogether parting with thesecret. For a long time he meditated profoundly--nodding. Then he turnedout his light and went to bed again and schemed himself to sleep.
6
The hochgeboren Graf von Winterfeld was also a light sleeper that night,but then he was one of these people who sleep little and play chessproblems in their heads to while away the time--and that night he had aparticularly difficult problem to solve.
He came in upon Bert while he was still in bed in the glow of thesunlight reflected from the North Sea below, consuming the rolls andcoffee a soldier had brought him. He had a portfolio under his arm,and in the clear, early morning light his dingy grey hair and heavy,silver-rimmed spectacles made him look almost benevolent. He spokeEnglish fluently, but with a strong German flavour. He was particularlybad with his "b's," and his "th's" softened towards weak "z'ds." Hecalled Bert explosively, "Pooterage." He began with some indistinctcivilities, bowed, took a folding-table and chair from behind the door,put the former between himself and Bert, sat down on the latter, cougheddrily, and opened his portfolio. Then he put his elbows on the table,pinched his lower lip with his two fore-fingers, and regarded Bertdisconcertingly with magnified eyes. "You came to us, Herr Pooterage,against your will," he said at last.
"'Ow d'you make that out?" asked Bert, after a pause of astonishment.
"I chuge by ze maps in your car. They were all English. And yourprovisions. They were all picnic. Also your cords were entangled. Youhaf' been tugging--but no good. You could not manage ze balloon, andanuzzer power than yours prought you to us. Is it not so?"
Bert thought.
"Also--where is ze laty?"
"'Ere!--what lady?"
"You started with a laty. That is evident. You shtarted for an afternoonexcursion--a picnic. A man of your temperament--he would take a laty.She was not wiz you in your balloon when you came down at Dornhof. No!Only her chacket! It is your affair. Still, I am curious."
Bert reflected. "'Ow d'you know that?"
"I chuge by ze nature of your farious provisions. I cannot account, Mr.Pooterage, for ze laty, what you haf done with her. Nor can I tell whyyou should wear nature-sandals, nor why you should wear such cheap plueclothes. These are outside my instructions. Trifles, perhaps. Officiallythey are to be ignored. Laties come and go--I am a man of ze worldt. Ihaf known wise men wear sandals and efen practice vegetarian habits.I haf known men--or at any rate, I haf known chemists--who did notschmoke. You haf, no doubt, put ze laty down somewhere. Well. Let us getto--business. A higher power"--his voice changed its emotional quality,his magnified eyes seemed to dilate--"has prought you and your secretstraight to us. So!"--he bowed his head--"so pe it. It is ze Destiny ofChermany and my Prince. I can undershtandt you always carry zat secret.You are afraidt of roppers and spies. So it comes wiz you--to us. Mr.Pooterage, Chermany will puy it."
"Will she?"
"She will," said the secretary, looking hard at Bert's abandoned sandalsin the corner of the locker. He roused himself, consulted a paper ofnotes for a moment, and Bert eyed his brown and wrinkled face withexpectation and terror. "Chermany, I am instructed to say," said thesecretary, with his eyes on the table and his notes spread out, "hasalways been willing to puy your secret. We haf indeed peen eager toacquire it fery eager; and it was only ze fear that you might be, onpatriotic groundts, acting in collusion with your Pritish War Office zathas made us discreet in offering for your marvellous invention throughintermediaries. We haf no hesitation whatefer now, I am instructed, inagreeing to your proposal of a hundert tousand poundts."
"Crikey!" said Bert, overwhelmed.
"I peg your pardon?"
"Jest a twinge," said Bert, raising his hand to his bandaged head.
"Ah! Also I am instructed to say that as for that noble, unrightlyaccused laty you haf championed so brafely against Pritish hypocrisy andcoldness, all ze chivalry of Chermany is on her site."
"Lady?" said Bert faintly, and then recalled the great Butteridge lovestory. Had the old chap also read the letters? He must think him ascorcher if he had. "Oh! that's aw-right," he said, "about 'er. I 'adn'tany doubts about that. I--"
He stopped. The secretary certainly had a most appalling stare. Itseemed ages before he looked down again. "Well, ze laty as you please.She is your affair. I haf performt my instructions. And ze title ofParon, zat also can pe done. It can all pe done, Herr Pooterage."
He drummed on the table for a second or so, and resumed. "I haf to tellyou, sir, zat you come to us at a crisis in--Welt-Politik. There can beno harm now for me to put our plans before you. Pefore you leafe thisship again they will be manifest to all ze worldt. War is perhapsalready declared. We go--to America. Our fleet will descend out of zeair upon ze United States--it is a country quite unprepared for wareferywhere--eferywhere. Zey have always relied on ze Atlantic. And theirnavy. We have selected a certain point--it is at present ze secretof our commanders--which we shall seize, and zen we shall establisha depot--a sort of inland Gibraltar. It will be--what will it be?--aneagle's nest. Zere our airships will gazzer and repair, and thencethey will fly to and fro ofer ze United States, terrorising cities,dominating Washington, levying what is necessary, until ze terms wedictate are accepted. You follow me?"
"Go on!" said Bert.
"We could haf done all zis wiz such Luftschiffe and Drachenflieger as wepossess, but ze accession of your machine renders our project complete.It not only gifs us a better Drachenflieger, but it remofes our lastuneasiness as to Great Pritain. Wizout you, sir, Great Pritain, ze landyou lofed so well and zat has requited you so ill, zat land of Phariseesand reptiles, can do nozzing!--nozzing! You see, I am perfectly frankwiz you. Well, I am instructed that Chermany recognises all this. Wewant you to place yourself at our disposal. We want you to become ourChief Head Flight Engineer. We want you to manufacture, we want to equipa swarm of hornets under your direction. We want you to direct thisforce. And it is at our depot in America we want you. So we offer yousimply, and without haggling, ze full terms you demanded weeks ago--onehundert tousand poundts in cash, a salary of three tousand poundts ayear, a pension of one tousand poundts a year, and ze title of Paron asyou desired. These are my instructions."
He resumed his scrutiny of Bert's face.
"That's all right, of course," said Bert, a little short of breath, butotherwise resolute and calm; and it seemed to him that now was the timeto bring his nocturnal scheming to the issue.
The secretary contemplated Bert's collar with sustained attention. Onlyfor one moment did his gaze move to the sandals and back.
"Jes' lemme think a bit," said Bert, finding the stare debilitating."Look 'ere!" he said at last, with an air of great explicitness, "I GOTthe secret."
"Yes."
"But I don't want the name of Butte
ridge to appear--see? I been thinkingthat over."
"A little delicacy?"
"Exactly. You buy the secret--leastways, I give it you--fromBearer--see?"
His voice failed him a little, and the stare continued. "I want to dothe thing Enonymously. See?"
Still staring. Bert drifted on like a swimmer caught by a current. "Factis, I'm going to edop' the name of Smallways. I don't want no title ofBaron; I've altered my mind. And I want the money quiet-like. I want thehundred thousand pounds paid into benks--thirty thousand into the Londonand County Benk Branch at Bun Hill in Kent directly I 'and over theplans; twenty thousand into the Benk of England; 'arf the rest into agood French bank, the other 'arf the German National Bank, see? I wantit put there, right away. I don't want it put in the name of Butteridge.I want it put in the name of Albert Peter Smallways; that's the name I'mgoing to edop'. That's condition one."
"Go on!" said the secretary.
"The nex condition," said Bert, "is that you don't make any inquiriesas to title. I mean what English gentlemen do when they sell or let youland. You don't arst 'ow I got it. See? 'Ere I am--I deliver you thegoods--that's all right. Some people 'ave the cheek to say this isn't myinvention, see? It is, you know--THAT'S all right; but I don't want thatgone into. I want a fair and square agreement saying that's all right.See?"
His "See?" faded into a profound silence.
The secretary sighed at last, leant back in his chair and produced atooth-pick, and used it, to assist his meditation on Bert's case. "Whatwas that name?" he asked at last, putting away the tooth-pick; "I mustwrite it down."
"Albert Peter Smallways," said Bert, in a mild tone.
The secretary wrote it down, after a little difficulty about thespelling because of the different names of the letters of the alphabetin the two languages.
"And now, Mr. Schmallvays," he said at last, leaning back and resumingthe stare, "tell me: how did you ket hold of Mister Pooterage'sballoon?"
7
When at last the Graf von Winterfold left Bert Smallways, he left him inan extremely deflated condition, with all his little story told.
He had, as people say, made a clean breast of it. He had been pursuedinto details. He had had to explain the blue suit, the sandals, theDesert Dervishes--everything. For a time scientific zeal consumed thesecretary, and the question of the plans remained in suspense. He evenwent into speculation about the previous occupants of the balloon. "Isuppose," he said, "the laty WAS the laty. Bot that is not our affair.
"It is fery curious and amusing, yes: but I am afraid the Prince may beannoyt. He acted wiz his usual decision--always he acts wiz wonterfuldecision. Like Napoleon. Directly he was tolt of your descent into thecamp at Dornhof, he said, 'Pring him!--pring him! It is my schtar!' Hisschtar of Destiny! You see? He will be dthwarted. He directed you tocome as Herr Pooterage, and you haf not done so. You haf triet, ofcourse; but it has peen a poor try. His chugments of men are fery justand right, and it is better for men to act up to them--gompletely.Especially now. Particularly now."
He resumed that attitude of his, with his underlip pinched between hisforefingers. He spoke almost confidentially. "It will be awkward. Itriet to suggest some doubt, but I was over-ruled. The Prince doesnot listen. He is impatient in the high air. Perhaps he will think hisschtar has been making a fool of him. Perhaps he will think _I_ haf beenmaking a fool of him."
He wrinkled his forehead, and drew in the corners of his mouth.
"I got the plans," said Bert.
"Yes. There is that! Yes. But you see the Prince was interested inHerr Pooterage because of his romantic seit. Herr Pooterage was so muchmore--ah!--in the picture. I am afraid you are not equal to controllingthe flying machine department of our aerial park as he wished you to do.He hadt promised himself that....
"And der was also the prestige--the worldt prestige of Pooterage withus.... Well, we must see what we can do." He held out his hand. "Gif methe plans."
A terrible chill ran through the being of Mr. Smallways. To this day heis not clear in his mind whether he wept or no, but certainly therewas weeping in his voice. "'Ere, I say!" he protested. "Ain't I to'ave--nothin' for 'em?"
The secretary regarded him with benevolent eyes. "You do not deserveanyzing!" he said.
"I might 'ave tore 'em up."
"Zey are not yours!"
"They weren't Butteridge's!"
"No need to pay anyzing."
Bert's being seemed to tighten towards desperate deeds. "Gaw!" he said,clutching his coat, "AIN'T there?"
"Pe galm," said the secretary. "Listen! You shall haf five hundertpoundts. You shall haf it on my promise. I will do that for you, andthat is all I can do. Take it from me. Gif me the name of that bank.Write it down. So! I tell you the Prince--is no choke. I do not think heapproffed of your appearance last night. No! I can't answer for him. Hewanted Pooterage, and you haf spoilt it. The Prince--I do not understandquite, he is in a strange state. It is the excitement of the startingand this great soaring in the air. I cannot account for what he does.But if all goes well I will see to it--you shall haf five hundertpoundts. Will that do? Then gif me the plans."
"Old beggar!" said Bert, as the door clicked. "Gaw!--what an olebeggar!--SHARP!"
He sat down in the folding-chair, and whistled noiselessly for a time.
"Nice 'old swindle for 'im if I tore 'em up! I could 'ave."
He rubbed the bridge of his nose thoughtfully. "I gave the whole blessedshow away. If I'd j'es' kep quiet about being Enonymous.... Gaw!... Toosoon, Bert, my boy--too soon and too rushy. I'd like to kick my sillyself.
"I couldn't 'ave kep' it up.
"After all, it ain't so very bad," he said.
"After all, five 'undred pounds.... It isn't MY secret, anyhow. It'sjes' a pickup on the road. Five 'undred.
"Wonder what the fare is from America back home?"
8
And later in the day an extremely shattered and disorganised BertSmallways stood in the presence of the Prince Karl Albert.
The proceedings were in German. The Prince was in his own cabin, the endroom of the airship, a charming apartment furnished in wicker-work witha long window across its entire breadth, looking forward. He was sittingat a folding-table of green baize, with Von Winterfeld and two officerssitting beside him, and littered before them was a number of Americanmaps and Mr. Butteridge's letters and his portfolio and a number ofloose papers. Bert was not asked to sit down, and remained standingthroughout the interview. Von Winterfeld told his story, and everynow and then the words Ballon and Pooterage struck on Bert's ears. ThePrince's face remained stern and ominous and the two officers watched itcautiously or glanced at Bert. There was something a little strangein their scrutiny of the Prince--a curiosity, an apprehension. Thenpresently he was struck by an idea, and they fell discussing the plans.The Prince asked Bert abruptly in English. "Did you ever see this thinggo op?"
Bert jumped. "Saw it from Bun 'Ill, your Royal Highness."
Von Winterfeld made some explanation.
"How fast did it go?"
"Couldn't say, your Royal Highness. The papers, leastways the DailyCourier, said eighty miles an hour."
They talked German over that for a time.
"Couldt it standt still? Op in the air? That is what I want to know."
"It could 'ovver, your Royal Highness, like a wasp," said Bert.
"Viel besser, nicht wahr?" said the Prince to Von Winterfeld, and thenwent on in German for a time.
Presently they came to an end, and the two officers looked at Bert. Onerang a bell, and the portfolio was handed to an attendant, who took itaway.
Then they reverted to the case of Bert, and it was evident the Princewas inclined to be hard with him. Von Winterfeld protested. Apparentlytheological considerations came in, for there were several mentionsof "Gott!" Some conclusions emerged, and it was apparent that VonWinterfeld was instructed to convey them to Bert.
"Mr. Schmallvays, you haf obtained a footing in this airship,"
he said,"by disgraceful and systematic lying."
"'Ardly systematic," said Bert. "I--"
The Prince silenced him by a gesture.
"And it is within the power of his Highness to dispose of you as a spy."
"'Ere!--I came to sell--"
"Ssh!" said one of the officers.
"However, in consideration of the happy chance that mate you theinstrument unter Gott of this Pooterage flying-machine reaching hisHighness's hand, you haf been spared. Yes,--you were the pearer ofgoot tidings. You will be allowed to remain on this ship until it isconvenient to dispose of you. Do you understandt?"
"We will bring him," said the Prince, and added terribly with a terribleglare, "als Ballast."
"You are to come with us," said Winterfeld, "as pallast. Do youunderstandt?"
Bert opened his mouth to ask about the five hundred pounds, and then asaving gleam of wisdom silenced him. He met Von Winterfeld's eye, and itseemed to him the secretary nodded slightly.
"Go!" said the Prince, with a sweep of the great arm and hand towardsthe door. Bert went out like a leaf before a gale.
9
But in between the time when the Graf von Winterfeld had talked to himand this alarming conference with the Prince, Bert had explored theVaterland from end to end. He had found it interesting in spite of gravepreoccupations. Kurt, like the greater number of the men upon theGerman air-fleet, had known hardly anything of aeronautics before hisappointment to the new flagship. But he was extremely keen upon thiswonderful new weapon Germany had assumed so suddenly and dramatically.He showed things to Bert with a boyish eagerness and appreciation. Itwas as if he showed them over again to himself, like a child showing anew toy. "Let's go all over the ship," he said with zest. He pointed outparticularly the lightness of everything, the use of exhausted aluminiumtubing, of springy cushions inflated with compressed hydrogen; thepartitions were hydrogen bags covered with light imitation leather, thevery crockery was a light biscuit glazed in a vacuum, and weighed nextto nothing. Where strength was needed there was the new Charlottenburgalloy, German steel as it was called, the toughest and most resistantmetal in the world.
There was no lack of space. Space did not matter, so long as load didnot grow. The habitable part of the ship was two hundred and fiftyfeet long, and the rooms in two tiers; above these one could go up intoremarkable little white-metal turrets with big windows and airtightdouble doors that enabled one to inspect the vast cavity of thegas-chambers. This inside view impressed Bert very much. He had neverrealised before that an airship was not one simple continuous gas-bagcontaining nothing but gas. Now he saw far above him the backbone of theapparatus and its big ribs, "like the neural and haemal canals," saidKurt, who had dabbled in biology.
"Rather!" said Bert appreciatively, though he had not the ghost of anidea what these phrases meant.
Little electric lights could be switched on up there if anything wentwrong in the night. There were even ladders across the space. "But youcan't go into the gas," protested Bert. "You can't breve it."
The lieutenant opened a cupboard door and displayed a diver's suit, onlythat it was made of oiled silk, and both its compressed-air knapsack andits helmet were of an alloy of aluminium and some light metal. "We cango all over the inside netting and stick up bullet holes or leaks," heexplained. "There's netting inside and out. The whole outer-case is ropeladder, so to speak."
Aft of the habitable part of the airship was the magazine of explosives,coming near the middle of its length. They were all bombs of varioustypes mostly in glass--none of the German airships carried any guns atall except one small pom-pom (to use the old English nickname datingfrom the Boer war), which was forward in the gallery upon the shield atthe heart of the eagle.
From the magazine amidships a covered canvas gallery with aluminiumtreads on its floor and a hand-rope, ran back underneath the gas-chamberto the engine-room at the tail; but along this Bert did not go, and fromfirst to last he never saw the engines. But he went up a ladder againsta gale of ventilation--a ladder that was encased in a kind of gas-tightfire escape--and ran right athwart the great forward air-chamber to thelittle look-out gallery with a telephone, that gallery that bore thelight pom-pom of German steel and its locker of shells. This gallerywas all of aluminium magnesium alloy, the tight front of the air-shipswelled cliff-like above and below, and the black eagle sprawledoverwhelmingly gigantic, its extremities all hidden by the bulge ofthe gas-bag. And far down, under the soaring eagles, was England, fourthousand feet below perhaps, and looking very small and defencelessindeed in the morning sunlight.
The realisation that there was England gave Bert sudden and unexpectedqualms of patriotic compunction. He was struck by a quite novel idea.After all, he might have torn up those plans and thrown them away. Thesepeople could not have done so very much to him. And even if they did,ought not an Englishman to die for his country? It was an idea thathad hitherto been rather smothered up by the cares of a competitivecivilisation. He became violently depressed. He ought, he perceived, tohave seen it in that light before. Why hadn't he seen it in that lightbefore?
Indeed, wasn't he a sort of traitor?... He wondered how the aerial fleetmust look from down there. Tremendous, no doubt, and dwarfing all thebuildings.
He was passing between Manchester and Liverpool, Kurt told him; agleaming band across the prospect was the Ship Canal, and a welteringditch of shipping far away ahead, the Mersey estuary. Bert was aSoutherner; he had never been north of the Midland counties, and themultitude of factories and chimneys--the latter for the most partobsolete and smokeless now, superseded by huge electric generatingstations that consumed their own reek--old railway viaducts, mono-railnet-works and goods yards, and the vast areas of dingy homes and narrowstreets, spreading aimlessly, struck him as though Camberwell andRotherhithe had run to seed. Here and there, as if caught in a net, werefields and agricultural fragments. It was a sprawl of undistinguishedpopulation. There were, no doubt, museums and town halls and evencathedrals of a sort to mark theoretical centres of municipal andreligious organisation in this confusion; but Bert could not seethem, they did not stand out at all in that wide disorderly visionof congested workers' houses and places to work, and shops and meanlyconceived chapels and churches. And across this landscape of anindustrial civilisation swept the shadows of the German airships like ahurrying shoal of fishes....
Kurt and he fell talking of aerial tactics, and presently went down tothe undergallery in order that Bert might see the Drachenflieger thatthe airships of the right wing had picked up overnight and were towingbehind them; each airship towing three or four. They looked, like bigbox-kites of an exaggerated form, soaring at the ends of invisiblecords. They had long, square heads and flattened tails, with lateralpropellers.
"Much skill is required for those!--much skill!"
"Rather!"
Pause.
"Your machine is different from that, Mr. Butteridge?"
"Quite different," said Bert. "More like an insect, and less like abird. And it buzzes, and don't drive about so. What can those thingsdo?"
Kurt was not very clear upon that himself, and was still explaining whenBert was called to the conference we have recorded with the Prince.
And after that was over, the last traces of Butteridge fell from Bertlike a garment, and he became Smallways to all on board. The soldiersceased to salute him, and the officers ceased to seem aware of hisexistence, except Lieutenant Kurt. He was turned out of his nice cabin,and packed in with his belongings to share that of Lieutenant Kurt,whose luck it was to be junior, and the bird-headed officer, stillswearing slightly, and carrying strops and aluminium boot-trees andweightless hair-brushes and hand-mirrors and pomade in his hands,resumed possession. Bert was put in with Kurt because there was nowhereelse for him to lay his bandaged head in that close-packed vessel. Hewas to mess, he was told, with the men.
Kurt came and stood with his legs wide apart and surveyed, him for amoment as he sat despondent in his new quarters.
<
br /> "What's your real name, then?" said Kurt, who was only imperfectlyinformed of the new state of affairs.
"Smallways."
"I thought you were a bit of a fraud--even when I thought you wereButteridge. You're jolly lucky the Prince took it calmly. He's a prettytidy blazer when he's roused. He wouldn't stick a moment at pitching achap of your sort overboard if he thought fit. No!... They've shoved youon to me, but it's my cabin, you know."
"I won't forget," said Bert.
Kurt left him, and when he came to look about him the first thing he sawpasted on the padded wall was a reproduction, of the great picture bySiegfried Schmalz of the War God, that terrible, trampling figure withthe viking helmet and the scarlet cloak, wading through destruction,sword in hand, which had so strong a resemblance to Karl Albert, theprince it was painted to please.