The Warlord of the Air

by Michael Moorcock

  Everyone was silent. Dutchke and Una Persson stood at the window, staring down. Shaw and Ulianov stood near me, peering at instruments which meant next to nothing to them. Shaw was dressed in a blue cotton suit and was puffing on a cigarette. On his head was tilted a coolie hat of woven reeds. There was a holstered revolver at his belt. After a while he began to pace back and forth across the bridge.

  We were drifting slowly over the hills. Within minutes we should be over the main enemy camp and in range of their artillery. If we were sighted they could swiftly send up several ships and there would be little doubt of the outcome. We should be blown from the sky, along with Project NFB. With Shaw dead, I doubted if Dawn City would have the will to carry on the fight much longer.

  But at last the camp was behind us and we relaxed slightly.

  “Can we start the engines yet?” Shaw asked.

  I shook my head. “Not yet. Another twenty minutes, perhaps. Maybe longer.”

  “We must get to Hiroshima before it is light.”

  “I understand.”

  “With those yards destroyed they will have almost as much difficulty replenishing their ammunition as we have. It will make it more of an equal fight.”

  “I agree,” I said. “And now, General Shaw, can you tell me what you hope to use to accomplish that destruction?”

  “It is in the lower hold,” he said. “You saw the scientists bringing it aboard.”

  “But what is it, this Project NFB?”

  “I’m told it’s a powerful bomb. I know very little more—it is extremely scientific—but it has been a dream of some scientists to make it since, I suppose, the beginnings of the century. It has cost us a lot of money and several years of research just to build one—the one in the lower hold.”

  “How do you know it will work?”

  “I do not. But if it does work, it should, in a single explosion, devastate the best part of the airship yards. The scientists tell me that when it is detonated the explosion will be equal to several hundred tons of TNT.”

  “Good God!”

  “I was equally incredulous, but they convinced me—particularly when three years ago they almost destroyed their entire laboratory with a very minor experiment along these lines. It is something to do with the atomic structure of matter, I believe. They had the theory for the bomb for a long time, but it took years to make the thing workable.”

  “Well, let’s hope they’re right,” I smiled. “If we drop it and it turns out to have the explosive power of a firecracker we are going to look very foolish.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And if it is as powerful as you say, we had better keep high enough up—blasts rise as well as spread. We should be at least a thousand feet above ground-level when it goes off.”

  Shaw nodded absently.

  Soon I was able to start the engines and the Shan-tien’s bridge trembled slightly as we surged through the night at 150 mph with the wind behind us! The roar of her engines going full out was music to my ears. I began to cheer up and checked our position. We had not much time to spare. By my calculations we should reach the Hiroshima airship yards about half-an-hour before the first intimation of dawn.

  For a while we were all lost in our own thoughts, standing on the bridge and listening to the rapid note of the engines.

  It was Shaw who broke the silence.

  “If I die now,” he said suddenly, expressing a notion not far from the minds of any of us. “I think that I have sown the seeds for a successful revolution throughout the world. The scientists at Dawn City will perfect Project NFB even if this bomb is not successful. More of the Fei-chi will be built and distributed amongst other revolutionists. I will give power to the people. Power to decide their own fate. I have already shown them that the Great Powers are not invincible, that they can be overthrown. You see, Uncle Vladimir, it is hope and not despair which breeds successful revolution!”

  “Perhaps,” Ulianov admitted. “Yet hope alone is not sufficient”

  “No—political power grows out of the erupting casing of a bomb like the bomb we are carrying. With such bombs at their disposal, the oppressed will be able to dictate any terms they choose to their oppressors.”

  “If the bomb works,” Una Persson said. “I am not sure it can. Nuclear fission, eh? All very well—but how do you achieve it? I fear you may have been deceived, Mr Shaw.”

  “We’ll see.”

  I remember the feeling of anticipation as the dark coast of Japan was sighted against the gleam of the moonlit ocean and once again we cut out the engines and began to drift on the wind.

  I readied the controls which would release the safety bolts on the loading doors (the main bolts had to be drawn by hand) and let the bomb fall onto the unsuspecting airship yards. I saw ribbons of myriad coloured lights. The city of Hiroshima. Beyond it lay the yards themselves—miles of sheds, of mooring masts and repair docks, an installation almost entirely given over to military airships, particularly at this time. If we could destroy only a part of it, we should succeed in delaying the assault on Dawn City.

  I remember staring at Una Persson and wondering if she were still thinking of her father’s death. And what was Dutchke brooding about? He had begun by hating Shaw but now he was bound to admit that the Warlord of the Air was a genius and that he had achieved what many another revolutionist had hoped to archive. Ulianov, for instance. It seemed that the old man hardly realised that his dream was coming true. He had waited so long. I suppose I sympathise with Ulianov more than most now. He had waited all his life for revolution, for the rise of the proletariat, and he was never to see it actually taking place. Perhaps it never did.... Shaw was leaning forward eagerly as we drifted high above the airship yards. He had one hand on the holster, a cigarette in his other hand. His yellow coolie hat was pushed back off his head and with his handsome Eurasian features he looked every bit a hero of popular romance.

  The yards were ablaze with light as men worked on the battleships which were to be ready for the big in­vasion on Dawn City next day. I saw the black outlines of the hulls, saw the flare of acetylene torches. “Are we there?” Once again the Warlord who had changed history looked like an excited schoolboy. “Are those the yards. Captain Bastable?”

  “That’s them,” I said.

  “The poor men,” said Ulianov shaking his white head. “They are only workers, like the others.”

  Dutchke jerked his thumb back towards the city. “Their children will thank us when they grow up.”

  I wondered. There would be many orphans and widows in Hiroshima tomorrow.

  Una Persson looked nervously at me. It seems she had lost her doubts about the efficacy of the bomb. “Mr Bastable, as I understand it a bomb of this type can, in theory, produce incalculable destruction. Parts of the city might be harmed.”

  I smiled. “The city’s nearly two miles away, Mrs Persson.”

  She nodded. “I suppose you’re right.” She stroked her neat, dark hair, looking down at the yards again.

  “Take her down to a thousand feet, Height Cox,” I said. “Easy as she goes.”

  We could see individual people now. Men moved across the concrete carrying tools, climbing the scaffolding around the huge ironclads.

  “There’s the main fitting yards.” Shaw pointed. “Can we get the ship over there without power?”

  “We’ll be spotted soon. But I’ll try. Five degrees, Steering Cox.”

  “Five degrees, sir,” said the pale young man at the wheel. The ship creaked slightly as she turned.

  “Be ready to take her up fast, Height Cox,” I warned.

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  We were over the fitting yards. I picked up my speaking tube.

  “Captain to lower hold. Are the main loading doors ready?”

  “Ready, sir.”

  I pressed the lever which would release the safety bolts.

  “Safety bolts gone, sir.”

  “Stand by to release cargo.”

 
“Standing by, sir.”

  I was using a procedure normally used to lighten the ship in an emergency.

  The huge ship sank down and down through the night. I heard a sighing breeze sliding about her nose. A melancholy breeze.

  “Gunners make ready to fire. Return fire if fired upon.” This was in case we were recognised and attacked. I was relying on the surprise of the big explosion to give us time to get away.

  “All guns ready, sir.”

  Shaw winked at me and chuckled.

  “Stand by all engines,” I said. “Full ahead as soon as you hear the bang.”

  “Standing by, sir.”

  “Ready cargo doors.”

  “Ready, sir.”

  “Let her go.”

  “She’s gone, sir.”

  “Elevation sixty degrees,” I said. “Up to three thousand, Height Cox. We’ve made it.”

  The ship tilted and we gripped the handrails as the bridge sloped steeply.

  Shaw and the others were peering down. I remember their faces so well. Dutchke pursing his lips and frowning. Una Persson apparently thinking of something else altogether. Ulianov smiling slightly to himself. Shaw turned to me. He grinned. “She’s just about to hit. The bomb...”

  I remember his face full of joy as the blinding white light flooded up behind him, framing the four of them in black silhouette. There was a strange noise, like a single, loud heartbeat. There was darkness and I knew I was blind. I burned with unbearable heat. I remember wondering at the intensity of the explosion. It must have destroyed the whole city, perhaps the island. The enormity of what had happened dawned on me.

  “Oh my God,” I remember thinking, “I wish the damned airship had never been invented.”

  Chapter VIII

  The Lost Man

  “AND THAT’S ABOUT it.” Bastable’s voice was harsh and cracked. He had been talking for the best part of three days.

  I laid down my pencil and looked wearily back through the pages and pages of shorthand notes which recorded his fantastic story.

  “You really believe you experienced all that!” I said. “But how do you explain getting back to our own time?”

  “Well, I was picked up in the sea, apparently; I was unconscious, temporarily blinded and quite badly burned. The Japanese fishermen who found me thought I was a seaman who’d been caught in an engine-room accident. I was taken to Hiroshima and put into the Sailors’ Hospital there. I was quite astonished to be told it was Hiroshima, I don’t mind admitting, since I was convinced the place had been blown to smithereens. Of course, it was some time before I realised I was back in 1902.”

  “And what did you do then?” I helped myself to a drink and offered him one which he refused.

  “Well, as soon as I came out of the hospital I went to the British Embassy, of course. They were decent. I claimed I had amnesia again. I gave my name, rank and serial number and said that the last thing I remembered was being pursued by Sharan Kang’s priests in the Temple of the Future Buddha. They telegraphed my regiment and, naturally, they confirmed that the particulars I had given were correct. I had my passage and train fare paid to Lucknow, where my regiment was then stationed. Six months had passed since the affair at Teku Benga.”

  “And your commanding officer recognised you, of course.”

  Bastable gave another of his short, bitter laughs. “He said that I had died at Teku Benga, that I could not have lived. He said that although I resembled Bastable in some ways I was an impostor. I was older, for one thing, and my voice was different.”

  “You reminded him of things only you could remember?”

  “Yes. He congratulated me on my homework and told me that if I tried anything like that again he would have me arrested.”

  “And you accepted that? What about your relatives? Didn’t you try to get in touch with them.”

  Bastable looked at me seriously. “I was afraid to. You see this is not completely the world I remember. I’m sure it’s my memory. Something caused by my passage to and fro in Time. But there are small details which seem wrong....” He cast about with a wild eye, like one who suddenly realises he is lost in a place he presumed familiar. “Small details....”

  “The opium, perhaps?” I murmured.

  “Maybe.”

  “And that’s why you’re afraid to go home. In case your relatives don’t recognise you?”

  “That’s why. I think I will have that drink.” He crossed the room and poured himself a large glass of rum. He had exhausted his supply of drugs while talking to me. “After being kicked out by my C.O.—I recognised him, by the way—I wandered up to Teku Benga. I got as far as the chasm and sure enough the whole place was in ruins. I had a horrifying feeling that if I could cross that chasm I’d find a corpse and it would be mine. So I didn’t try. I had a few shillings and I bought some native clothes—begged my way across India, sometimes riding the trains, looking, at first, for some sort of confirmation of my own identity, somebody to tell me I really was alive. I talked to mystics I met and tried to get some sense out of them, but it was all no good. So I decided I’d try to forget my identity. I took to swallowing opium in any form I could get it. I went to China. To Shantung. I found the Valley of the Morning. I don’t know what I expected it to be. It was as beautiful as ever. There was a little, poor village in it. The people were kind to me.”

  “Then you came here?”

  “After a few other places, yes.”

  I didn’t know what to make of the chap. I could not but believe every word of what he had said. The conviction in his voice was so strong.

  “I think you’d better come back to London with me,” I said. “See your relatives. They’ll be bound to know you.”

  “Perhaps.” He sighed. “But you know, I think I’m not meant to be here. That explosion—that awful explosion over Hiroshima—it—it spat me out of one time in which I didn’t belong—into another....”

  “Oh, nonsense.”

  “No, it’s true. This is 1903—or a 1903—but it—it isn’t my 1903.”

  I thought I understood what he meant, but I could hardly believe that such a thing could be remotely true. I could accept that a man had gone forward in Time and been returned to his own period—but I couldn’t believe that there might be an alternative 1903.

  Bastable took another drink. “And pray to God that it wasn’t your 1973,” he said. “Science run wild—revolutions—bombs which can destroy whole cities!” He shuddered.

  “But there were benefits,” I said hesitantly. “And I’m not sure the natives you mention weren’t, on the whole, well off.”

  He shrugged. “Different ages make the same people think in different terms. I did what I did. There’s nothing else to be said. I probably shouldn’t do it now. Besides, there is more freedom in this world of ours, old man. Believe me—there is!”

  “It’s disappearing every day,” I said. “And not everyone’s free. I admit that privilege exists...”

  He raised a silencing hand. “No discussions of that kind, for God’s sake.”

  “All right.”

  “You might as well tear those notes up,” he said. “Nobody will believe you. Why should they? Do you mind if I take a bit of a stroll—get some fresh air, while I think what to do?”

  “Yes. Very well.”

  I watched him walk tiredly out of the room and heard his feet on the stairs. What a strange young man he was.

  I glanced through my notes. Giant airships—mono-railways—electric bicycles—wireless telephones—flying machines—all the marvels. They could not have been invented by the mind of one young man.

  I lay down on my bed, still mulling the problem over, and I must have fallen asleep. I remember waking briefly once and wondering where Bastable was, then I slept till morning, assuming he was in the next room.

  But when I got up Ram Dass told me that the bed had not been slept in. I went and enquired of Olmeijer if he knew where Bastable was, but the fat Dutchman had not seen him.
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  I asked everyone in the town if they had come across Bastable. Someone told me that they had seen a young man staggering down by the harbour late at night and assumed him drunk.

  A ship had left that morning. Perhaps Bastable had got aboard. Perhaps he had thrown himself into the sea.

  I heard no more of Bastable, though I advertised for news of him and spent more than a year making enquiries, but he had vanished. Perhaps he had actually been snatched through Time again—to the past or the future or even to the 1903 he thought he should belong in?

  And that was that. I’ve had the whole manuscript typed up, put it into order, cut out repetitions and some unnecessary comments Bastable made while he spoke. I’ve clarified where I could. But essentially this is Bastable’s account as he told it to me.

  Note (1907): Since I saw Bastable, of course, the air has been conquered by the Wright brothers and the powered balloon is being developed apace. Radiotele-phony had become an actuality and I heard recently that there are several inventors experimenting with monorail systems. Is it all coming true? If so, for my own selfish reasons, I look forward to a world made increasingly peaceful and convenient, for I shall be dead before the world sees the revolutionary holocaust Bastable described. And yet there are a few things which do not coincide with his description. The heavier than air flying machine is an actuality already. People in France and America are flying them and there is even some talk of flying across the channel in one! But perhaps these aeroplanes will not last or are not capable of very great speeds or sustained flight.

  I have tried to interest a number of publishers in Bastable’s accpunt, but all judge it too fantastical to be presented as fact and too gloomy to be presented as fiction. Writers like Mr Wells seem to have the corner in such books. Only this one is true. I’m sure it is true. I shall continue to try to get it published, for Bastable’s sake.

  Note (1909): Bleriot has flown the channel in an aeroplane! Again I tried to interest a publisher in Bastable’s story and, like several others, he asked me to alter it—‘put in more adventures—a love story—a few more marvels’ is what he said. I cannot alter what Bastable told me and so I consign the manuscript to the drawer for perhaps another year.