Between Worlds

by Garret Smith

  THE more we saw the so-called “Earth civilization, the more we were con-fused by its marvelous advancement in certain sciences and in mechanical inventions, and the sharp contrast of these developments with their savage ways of living, their savage attitude toward human life, their tyrannous governments, their absurd and contradictory customs and beliefs.

  Of their governments I could make nothing. No two seemed alike. All, however, seemed founded on the principle that a few of the more powerful of the people should rule by authority over the many, whereby the few were rich and powerful, and the many lived in poverty and squalor.

  I was reminded of the queen’s method of ruling in the Land of Night, and of the unhappy state into which she had proposed to thrust Venus.

  Of their religious views I could at first make little. I heard much talk of religious matters, a thing unknown in Venus, where we took our common, simple faith for granted. But here there seemed as many opinions as there were people, and each man had worked out for himself a most complicated system.

  I soon learned, however, that all worshiped one God, who, to my mind, was none other than our own Great Over Spirit. Christianity, which seemed to be the general name of a vast group of religions, I found on reading its sacred book, was a faith of great beauty and truth, teaching practically the same code of living and worship as practised in Venus.

  But when it came to practise, I found these professedly devout Christians curiously inconsistent, particularly among the Germans. One of their chief laws forbade killing, and at the same time all the Earth was engaged in killing as its chief occupation. Another-forbade stealing. Yet, apparently, Christian Germany had adopted the profession of killing in order that it might steal as much as possible from its neighbors.

  We were vastly sickened of the whole miserable, inconsistent mess.

  Then, while we rested in the little mountain inn and digested these impressions, there came to us a report that was to change greatly our attitude toward the Earth and its people, and proved an important turning point in our future.

  A refugee from Germany stopped at our inn one day and told us a tale of an unfortunate American girl who was being held practically a prisoner in Germany, on the suspicion of acting as a spy for England, despite the fact that her country, America, was not yet in the war. Lately she had learned that her sister, a Red Cross nurse in France, was seriously ill. She was frantic to go to her sister’s bedside, but had been unable to move the German authorities.

  The story of these unfortunate girls affected us greatly. We had already conceived considerable respect for their country from reports we had heard, and from representatives of the people whom we had met; that is, as much respect as we could well have for an Earth country at that time. In the first place, we heard it called a country of peace. It had kept out of the World War, which to our minds then was a distinct merit. We learned differently later. Then too, we were told that Americans ruled themselves. While they had laws, to be sure, they made them themselves, changed them when they saw fit, and were not too particular at any time about enforcing them.

  So the fact that these, ladies in distress were Americans rather than that they were women, largely influenced our decision to go to their relief.

  There was no time to be lost. The sick sister might die at any moment. Hunter went at the task with his usual simple directness.”

  First he learned from the refugee the general directions for reaching the place where the lady was held. She was, it seemed, in a garrison town in Belgium, a few miles back of the German line where she had gone to help with the Belgian relief work.

  Without further delay, and scarcely pausing for Hunter to outline his plans to me, we packed our bags and took up a position in the main highway near the inn, where there were constantly rushing to and fro those marvelous inventions, automobiles, one of the many forms of ingenious devices by which these restless Earth creatures manage to rush madly about for no reason conceivable to our leisurely, Venus-born minds. Here was an occasion, however, when even we could appreciate them.

  Hunter, being as I have already shown of a mechanical turn of mind, had long since learned to drive one of these vehicles.

  Now we obtained the use of an excellent one in our emergency by the simple expedient of standing in the middle of the road and forcing the driver of the next car that appeared to slow down to avoid an accident, a caution we had made doubly sure by rolling a fair-sized boulder into the roadway.

  In a twinkling we had the occupants of the car, two prosperous-looking men besides the driver, insensible and lying by the roadside. We placed a roll of money in the pocket of one in payment for the car, rolled the obstruction out of the way, and were off toward the German border at full speed.

  No German officer could have acted in more highhanded manner, but I doubt if any German officer would have left payment.

  An hour later, we had met the challenge of the border guards with a dash of anesthetic in their faces and were rolling swiftly over the highways of Germany.

  CHAPTER IX

  A GREAT CONVERSION

  OUR passage from the Swiss border to the little garrison town in Flanders was a swift one, but punctuated thickly with excitement. Barely a mile did we travel without challenge. It was well that we had with us a large quantity of this anesthetic fluid, for we were forced constantly to resort to it.

  In each instance we left behind us superstitious terror at our magical disappearance. But amazement at the unknown could not altogether balk the matter-of-fact German mind. As Hunter had anticipated, the telegraph was brought into play, and we soon found ourselves expected along the route ahead.

  Our first intimation of this was when a sentry fired at us on sight, before we could get near enough to use our sprayer.

  We countered, however, by a frequent change of routes. We also abandoned our car several times to confuse pursuit, and commandeered a new one each time by the same process as that by which we had acquired the first one, excepting that we quickly gave in to the conventions of Earthly warfare and ceased paying for the borrowed vehicles.

  Hunter also increased the strength of his anesthetic so that our victims would be in no shape to send an alarm for several hours, and in addition we changed garments with two of our victims each time it was possible.

  As it was, bullets twice ripped through the car body and once punctured a tire. On two occasions we were forced to leave the car and hide in the woods, but in each case our pursuers defeated themselves by coming upon us too closely before they saw us, and thus again getting in range of an anesthetic dose.

  Nevertheless, we escaped unwounded, and early one evening found ourselves near the object of our search, on a shell-torn road in ravished Belgium.

  This was the first time we had actually been in the active war area. In all our previous journeys about Germany we had carefully kept away from the battle-front, as the reports we had from them made intolerable the thought of visiting such scenes of horror.

  And at the moment of our arrival the battle madness seemed to be raging at its height. So near were we to the front line that the ground trembled under the continuous explosion of the great guns, and all along the horizon was a continuous flashing of bursting shells. The little town lay in a shallow valley at our feet, and in the waning light we could see a file of fresh troops starting for the trenches. Motors were constantly dashing to and fro, many of them ambulances bearing the wounded back to the hospital.

  Graphic as had been the description given us of these scenes, in the presence of the actuality we suffered from momentary faint-heartedness at the thought of braving the very depths of this caldron of hell, our only defense against its destruction contained in a glass jar that one man could carry.

  But I had experienced myself the potency of one of those same jars of volatile fluid released in the crowd at East Venus. I took fresh courage from the memory, and with a firm grip on my will prepared for the ordeal. In addition to the milder, temporary anesthetic which we
used in our sprayers, Hunter had prepared two jars of the stronger mixture.

  One of these, Hunter was confident, when released, would fill all the area of the valley in which the town lay with a gas that would render every living thing in it insensible for hours, unless revived by an antidote.

  Now, with one of these in readiness, we drove down the slope toward the town.

  Being at the time in the uniform of German officers, and driving a military car, we were not challenged till we reached the sentry at the edge of the town, though we passed many soldiers on the way.

  Our sprayers silenced the sentry. Then we donned our gas-masks, opened one of the jars and shook its contents into the air about us. We waited until the gas had time to take effect, and then drove down into the town unmolested.

  Everywhere lay the bodies of men apparently dead, officers and common soldiers alike for the time being made helpless by our powerful gas.

  We had been given a map of the town, together with the location and description of the house in which was interned the lady we sought. After a half-hour’s search we found it and made forcible entry.

  Outside were the insensible bodies of one old man, a crippled youth, and three women. We had no difficulty in identifying her we sought, not only from the description we had and letters in her room, but from the fact that the other two women were elderly and of the heavier German type with which we had come to be familiar.

  If the story of this girl had appealed to me before I saw her, my pity was doubly stirred when I stood in her unconscious presence.

  I had hitherto found the women of Earth rather repellent than otherwise. They had seemed to me to be divided into two classes, one group of the type introduced lately into Venus by the Lady of the South, and therefore particularly obnoxious, the clinging sort who practised supposedly seductive charms for the sole purpose of luring men to support them in idleness.

  The other species was the domineering kind, more masculine than the males themselves, bent on ruling, the ideal introduced into startled Venus by the Queen of the Night.

  To us of Venus, accustomed to regard women simply as human beings and equal companions, differing neither in physical appearance and dress, nor in social duties and privileges from the men, these Earth women, so totally different in every aspect from the males of their species, seemed even less of the human sort than those barbarous beings whom they sometimes sarcastically called their “lords” and “masters.”

  This latter jest I learned, was an echo of an earlier age, when the Earth male really dominated the physically weaker female.

  But this girl at first sight impressed me as different. Physically she had the tall, lithe figure of a boy. Her face, too, had an appealing quality of boyish frankness.

  She was not exactly beautiful according to the standards of Venus, particularly as exemplified in the unusual persons of the queen and the lady. But she departed less from the type of Venus than did most Earth women I had so far seen. Her tall, slender figure, her pale face and light hair, and her features that for a daughter of Earth were almost delicate, all gave her a physical personality somehow familiar and appealing.

  But her eyes, when at length under the influence of restoratives she opened them, were the wonderful, soft, luminous brown never seen on the planet of our birth.

  With her first look my heart seemed for and instant to pause; then it leaped violently. She spoke. I never could remember afterward what she said. But with her first words came to me a great revelation.

  The guns still thundered in the distance. Brutal Earth men were slaying and being slain by the thousands out there. I was still in the planet I had cursed from the bottom of my heart a thousand times a day.

  But in a twinkling it had all changed. It had suddenly become a most interesting world in which I somehow by a strange metamorphosis of soul found myself at home.

  At last I had learned the meaning of love.

  FROM that moment, without being conscious of it, I seemed, as I realize now, to take the leadership of the expedition. Only one thing mattered, and that was the safety and comfort of this glorious girl, and I was the one ordained to insure it. If I thought of Hunter at all in the matter it was only with a feeling of jealousy lest he, too, share in the glorious emotion that obsessed me.

  But of such sentiment on his part, there was no evidence. He was all cool, swift efficiency. If he noticed in any way my new attitude, he did not betray his knowledge.

  Our plan of action from this point had been carefully worked out and agreed upon. Everything proceeded without mishap.

  We purposed to drive boldly down the valley to the front battle-line, asphyxiating the troops as we went, and, pass directly through the lines into the territory held by the English.

  We had devised capes from the robes found in the car to hide our German uniforms at the moment of entering the English lines, and each had a suit of civilian clothes into which we purposed to change immediately afterward. From there on our papers would protect us.

  As we proceeded toward the front we soon reached an area where our gas had not extended. Even to our untrained eye it was evident that things were amiss with the Germans.

  As we learned afterward, the Germans in this sector had just made a brilliant charge following a terrific artillery duel. They had captured a section of the English trenches and silenced their batteries. To this last fact we owed our immunity from danger from the English fire, which beforehand had worried us not a little.

  But now the victors were ready to push forward again, and something had gone awry. Fresh men were expected from the base back of us to help consolidate these gains. The guns demanded ammunition that was due from this same base. Ambulances should have removed the wounded. None of these things had arrived.

  We had put an important base out of commission with our gas.

  In the confusion and hesitation that resulted we pushed forward over the shell-torn road to the rear trenches. Here we left the car, throwing our capes over our uniforms and discarding our helmets.

  Before anyone could molest us, we had opened the second of our deadly jars and scattered its contents.

  A few moments later we were threading our way through the labyrinth of communication trenches and across what had lately been the torn and deadly area of no man’s land.

  We arrived at the new position the Germans had taken before they were overcome by the gas, just as the English had rallied their forces and were about to countercharge. We had climbed to the top of the trench preparatory to dashing across to the English lines when a star-shell burst near by.

  A scant, fifty yards away a yelling line of brown-clad men were leaping toward us from their trenches. Instinctively we threw our hands in the air and shouted.

  I can readily understand that we must have presented a weird and Impressive sight to the battle-distorted imaginations of those oncoming men, three tall, robed figures, our fair hair shining like halos under the star-shell’s glare.

  The brown line directly in front of us wavered for an instant. Distinctly to our ears came an awed cry from some one in the ranks:

  “The Angels! The Angels!”

  Then the others swept them on toward us.

  At that we awoke to the peril of our exposed position, and, dropping back into the trenches, took shelter in a dugout while the brown line thundered over our heads.

  An hour or more later we were picked up by a patrol well back of the English lines. We told him a fanciful tale of coming up from a channel port in a car which had broken down. We said we had lost our way while searching for the hospital in which the young lady’s sister lay ill.

  Despite the fact that the hospital was many miles away, our papers satisfied our challengers, and we were presently on our way to our destination in a military car.

  But to this day there persist strange legends of the Angels who appeared over the battle-field and encouraged the English troops to retrieve a sharp defeat and hold their line from further German advance. Thes
e tales are many and various, but the standard version of the story, though giving a somewhat different time and location to the. incident, is so near to the account of our actual experience that I have always been convinced that we unwittingly furnished the foundation of the legend of “The Angels of Mons.”

  LITTLE did Hunter and I realize when we started out on our chivalrous adventure, having as its purpose the rescue of Margaret Fanwood and her. reunion with her sick sister Elizabeth, that we were destined to spend three long years amid the tragic scenes of this Earth war.

  We would have been even more amazed had we been told that we would spend those years there willingly, and in the end play an all-important part in bringing that terrible conflict to its close.

  We arrive at the base hospital to find Elizabeth Fanwood at the crisis of her illness, to which, happily, the arrival of her sister gave a favorable turn, and she was soon on the road to recovery.

  Elizabeth and Margaret were twin sisters, and, with the former restored to health, I defy the casual stranger to tell them apart. I have described Margaret. For the reader to know Elizabeth, he has only to turn back to my introduction of Margaret.

  But to the clairvoyant vision lent me by my new-born love there was no such confusion of identity. I readily concede that Elizabeth is an estimable and attractive girl, but have never yet ceased to wonder that from the start Hunter seemed to be more drawn to her than to Margaret, a fact, to be sure, for which I was devoutly grateful.

  I had no reason to believe, however, that he entertained for her a feeling similar to my interest in her sister.

  AS TIME wore on, indeed, my devotion became a source of misery rather than of happiness. My sober sense told me of its hopelessness. I could, no more than Hunter, conceive of union with an alien Earth maiden. Abhorrent was the thought of wedding one of Venus not of our own clan.