In any case, the trenchant voice of the Minister put in: “It’s necessary for us to be up there within a week, isn’t it, Monsieur Thiérard-Leroy?”
“It’s necessary,” the astronomer repeated.
“I thought immediately of airplanes,” Monsieur Luissant pronounced then, “but on the advice of the Commander-in-Chief of Aeronautics, it would be madness to think of landing on that pointed spur of rock or in that chaos of roofs. Dirigibles, on the other hand, floating above the Ossat, might be able to deposit a few resolute men in one of the interior courtyards.”
The chief of military aeronautics made a sign of assent.
“Within forty-eight hours,” the Minister continued, “our six available dirigibles must rally at Tarbes, whatever the weather.” The statesman added: “But it goes without saying that before then, we’ll have rendered the monsters incapable of doing any harm. That will be the task of our air force. General Hochtheim can explain that to you better than me.”
The Chief of Aeronautics then set out a very simple plan for the employment of airplanes.
First of all, a few light aircraft would fly over the Ossat, for an initial reconnaissance that would permit photographs to be taken. Then a squadron of bombers would intervene, which would drop tons of explosives and gas shells on the building. We could count, on the one hand, of the destruction—or rather the dispersal—of the chemical substances produced by Livry, and on other, of the certain asphyxiation of the three wretches. Afterwards, a squad of specialists equipped with gas masks could be disembarked at leisure to verify the effects.
All that seemed very logically conceived.
An impression of immense relief ensued.
After the emotion of the first moment, it appeared to the most timorous eyes that perhaps we had exaggerated, if not the danger, at least the difficulty of warding it off in a manner as sure as it would be rapid.
I alone lowered my head; Roger’s death sentence had just been pronounced. I would so much have liked to save the poor follow. But how could I have implored in his favor?
The orders can be launched immediately. An automobile radiotelegraphic apparatus has just arrived from Tarbes. It can easily communicate with the large station of the Croix d’Hins near Bordeaux; from there, the air force camp at Istre can be reached by telephone, where everything ought to be set in motion during the night.
However, the wireless telegraph apparatus, when switched on, does not work.
Is it a fault of attunement, or a breakdown in the transmission apparatus? At any rate, the waves are not transmitted.
After several fruitless attempts, the decision is made to send a dispatch by motorcycle to the nearest telegraph office.
“A bad start,” murmurs Monsieur Luissant.
No one says a word.
The hours pass, with what slowness!
I’m cold.
Is it an unfortunate predisposition of my physical being, deprived of sleep, or a fallacious impression of my nerves by which I’m experiencing the expected sensation is advance?
No. Others than me seem to be suffering the uncomfortable effects of the atmospheric freshness. There is no doubt that it’s accentuating. It contrasts strangely with the sun, which is rising over the horizon and ought to be better able to warm us with is rays.
At Monsieur Luissant’s invitation, our group goes to seek shelter in a tawdry wagoners’ inn at the intersection of two roads.
The common room has already been invaded by soldiers. We take refuge in a room with primitive furniture. An armful of vine-branches produces a bright flame in the fireplace and chases away the odor of mildew reigning in the room.
Eleven o’clock: our anxious impatience finally finds a diversion.
XX. Disappointment and Disaster
Three airplanes are spotted in a north-westerly direction. They are the reconnaissance aircraft.
They are flying at a low altitude, in spite of the sonorous purr of their engines. They pass over the needle of the Ossat and immediately veer away in order to land behind our position, a mound that overlooks the bifurcation of the two roads.
The aviators make their report.
They have fulfilled their mission. Several photographic views of the Ossat have been taken. They have not, however, distinguished any human being within the walls of the convent. They complain about the cold and the poor performance of their engines.
Another hour goes by.
Here comes the squadron of large bomber aircraft. The machines are flying very low, a hundred and fifty meters at the most; abrupt signals appear to be given by the squadron leader to regain altitude. Everyone divines that they want to pass over the needle.
But it seems to us that they cannot succeed in flying over the obstacle, because they disperse to the left and the right in order to go around the strange obelisk at mid-height, scarcely two hundred meters.
What does it mean? Machines that can normally reach seven thousand meters! That, at least, is the figure cited by the professionals that surround me.
Heavily, the large aircraft reach the neighboring landing-ground indicated to them by beacons.
Twenty minutes later, the commandant of the squadron, Capitaine Tenan, an ace among aces, presents himself to his chief, General Hochtheim.
“It’s incomprehensible, General,” he says. “About twenty kilometers from the place, our machines suffered a regular loss of altitude, as if they were falling along an inclined plane. If it had been a matter of one or two aircraft out of my six, I would have put the decline down to engine failure or a lack of fuel, but the whole squadron…!” He made a gesture of chagrin. “Explain it if you can! My planes have a ceiling of two hundred meters, and that with difficulty.”
A disconcerting observation.
“Give me a report!” mutters the chief of aeronautics, deeply grieved to see the initial failure of the plan he had so judiciously explained that morning.
“You’ll succeed better with your dirigibles,” says Monsieur Luissant, to appease that disappointment.
“In the meantime, I want to ensure that the people up there sense our surveillance weighing upon them,” says the General. “I’m waiting for observation balloons, and before our big dirigibles come on the scene this afternoon, we’re going to be able to watch a captive ascent. The aerostatic fleet brought from Bordeaux is disembarking as we speak at the nearest railway station. Within an hour it will be in the vicinity of the Ossat.”
We go to lunch.
Without waiting for the end of the meal, served with despairing slowness by the staff of the inn, the Minister gets up from the table. We all follow him
On foot, we go to the edge of a little wood. The ascent is to take place from there.
A captain who has come on ahead of his column examines the location. Nothing will be easier, he declares, than to float a “sausage” a hundred meters above the needle of the Ossat. Thus, we’ll be able to complete the reconnaissance of the airplanes, and perhaps discover with binoculars the emplacement of Livry’s “refrigerators.”
That first ascent, therefore, promises very important results. Who can tell? Perhaps the solution vainly sought might suddenly appear.
Tenuous as the hope might be, it imposes itself even so; it brightens our expressions.
Now the captive aerostat appears; its baroque silhouette is bobbing a few meters above the vehicular winch around which the metallic cable is wound.
The “sausage” has been inflated on the way. Insufficiently, no doubt, for it seems flaccid; its ascensional force is very weak. That won’t last! Behind comes the truck with cylinders of compressed hydrogen; in a quarter of an hour it can be reinflated properly.
The tubing is fitted, the taps opened—but the gas doesn’t flow. Nothing! No pressure...”
“The hydrogen cylinders have been damaged,” declares the vexed captain.
We are all nervous, disappointed by that further failure.
Fortunately, good news arrives to palliate the ann
oyance caused by that unfortunate incident. The Minister is summoned to the improvised telephone installed in a tent. After a brief conversation, Luissant returns to our group.
“A success, Messieurs,” the Minister says, “The Colonel Renard and the France are floating over Tarbes. The Commandants of the dirigibles are requesting orders by optical signals, because it definitely seems that we’ll have to go into mourning for wireless apparatus. It’s no longer functioning.”
General Hochtheim orders the France to press on to the Mont d’Ossat and carry out the reconnaissance that it has not been possible to effect. Within half an hour the airship is in sight.
We begin to hope again.
This time, nothing appears likely to trouble the dirigible’s maneuvers.
As often happens at sunset, the breeze has dropped; the air is admirably calm. Already, the watchmen posted on a hill are agitating, sending signals in a northerly direction.
Preceded by Étienne, who is running as fast as he can, I climb up there.
Luissant joins us. He communicates the supplementary information he has just received about the large aerial units—for the alerted dirigibles have been taking off since the previous evening. With various fortunes, they are all attempting to reach the Pyrenees.
The Ville de Paris, departed from Toul, has come down in the Duchy of Bade. The Ville de Nancy, from Mayence, has been drawn north-eastwards; the balloon has been signaled passing over Utrecht; perhaps it is lost in the North Sea. The Patrie emerging brand new from the workshops of Moisson, has been obliged to turn back by an engine breakdown. The République has called in at Clermont-Ferrand; it will resume its south-westerly route in the evening.
In sum, only the Colonel Renard and the France, two navy dirigibles departed from Toulon that morning have been able to accomplish their aerial voyage without a hitch. In spite of the westerly wing blowing persistently, the two airships, traveling in convoy, have crossed the Cévennes and then continued their route as far as Tarbes, where the façade of the corn-market has been demolished in order to permit them to take temporary refuge there.
Already, the long gray spindle of the France, an ex-zeppelin, is a patch in the blue sky. The balloon is visibly increasing in size. But is it an illusion? As it gets closer, one might think that it were getting heavier.
Around me, comments underline the same impression: the balloon is losing speed, and losing altitude.
Now it’s no more than two kilometers away, but its altitude must be less than a hundred and fifty meters. Is it a landing maneuver?
“No!” declares General de Lozières, who is following its movement with his binoculars. “The envelope is deforming; the balloon appears to be breaking in two...”
He utters a cry. “Damn! The balloon’s falling.”
That cry of anguish is repeated by all the spectators. With a vertiginous rapidity, the France spins on her axis and hurtles toward the ground.
My respiration halts. Instinctively, I close my eyes in order not to see.
A dull sound; that is the crash.
A horrified exclamation rises from the plain. Everyone runs toward the lamentable wreck. The immense envelope covers the nacelle and the martyrs enclosed therein like a shroud.
I don’t have the courage to assist in the horrible recovery of the cadavers.
I retrace my steps as far as the inn. I collapse, prostrate, at a table, my head clasped in my hands.
The Minister has followed me, accompanied by his general staff. As if in a dream, I hear the plaints of General Hochtheim and the strange and despairing observation to which he has proceeded of his own accord.
Aircraft can no longer rise above the ground!
What incredible sorcery is retaining the aerial apparatus conceived by human genius, marvelous machines that have proved their worth?
The fact is there: those machines can no longer fly.
“No matter,” says the Minister. “We’ll try other means. Cannons, mines...”
We return to the terrain of the strange battle.
After the incredible failure of aviation and aerostatics, the floor is given to the artillery. Certainly, a bombardment of the convent is possible, on condition of bringing special engines. To make projectiles fall at an altitude of four hundred meters in a relatively narrow zone, one could not think of using field cannon; the projectiles would only produce insignificant scratches on the granite walls. At the very least, it would be necessary to employ much greater firepower: mortars capable of plunging fire, able to fire large explosive charges.
That operation will involve the transportation of extremely heavy materiel, the installation of platforms and, in sum, the extension of the railway line and the establishment of a spurs far as the location chosen for the establishment of the batteries—hence, extensive works and adaptations of the route. One would therefore run into the same inert factor, impossible to force: time.
The director of the artillery estimated at more than a week the necessary interval before the first cannon shot could be fired.
“And then,” the General added, doubtless to the great mortification of his self-esteem, “thousands of shells might fall on the convent without producing appreciable results. Certainly, we could burn all the combustible materials—but what then?”
“It won’t be sufficient to destroy!” Luissant interjected, almost violently. “The problem won’t be solved is we don’t succeed in setting foot up there!” He waved his fist at the abrupt summit. “Understand me well, my friends, we’re engaged in a struggle for existence.” Luissant emphasized the final phrase in a dramatic fashion. Full of grandeur, the gesture of his open hand ran around the entire horizon, encountered the sun and broadened out toward the sky.
As if in response to that mute invocation to the earth and the Universe, up above, on the accursed mountain, at the top of the squat bell-tower that emerged from the crenellated walls of the monastery, a flag in the form of a pennant slowly unfurled.
“The black flag!” murmured General de Lozières, who had directed his binoculars toward the summit.
Then, at the moment when the sun disappeared behind the gold-rimmed mountains, a sudden cold breath descended from the sky, like an invisible cold shower.
On that splendid spring evening, the Man of the Apocalypse declared war on Life.
XXI. The Tide of Terror
Another late night of terror and tears.
The Minister, the generals, the scientists and I were entrenched in the low-ceilinged room of the inn. An infinite despair weighed upon us. In spite of the decent meal that the Prefect had summoned from Tarbes, the white tablecloth and the harsh light cast by two automobile headlights serving for illumination, our spirits could not overcome the prostration that was gripping us.
Never, even in the most critical hours of the war, on the eve of attacks, under bombardments, had I witnessed such depression.
After the semblance of a dinner in which the food was barely touched, everyone sought his corner in order to think or sink into torpor. The Minister refused the camp bed that had been prepared for him.
Vanquished by fatigue, I surrendered to a heavy slumber.
Abruptly, toward midnight, a loud detonation caused me to sit up, at the same time as all my companions.
The window-panes had shattered into smithereens.
Most of us found ourselves hurled to the floor, struggling in a profound obscurity.
By the light of a pocket electric torch, we were able to look around. Those who had been knocked down among the overturned benches and chairs got up again.
Apart from a few cuts caused by broken glass, no one was wounded.
“What now?” asked the Minister.
“Undoubtedly an explosion nearby,” General de Lozières supposed.
“In the direction of the air fleet!” exclaimed General Hochtheim, on the threshold of the door, partly open. “Oh! That light! Out there, everything’s on fire!”
We race outside on the heels of the h
ead of the air force, guided by the red smoke rising toward the sky.
Detachments camped in the vicinity come running, but imperative cries are heard dominating the tumult: “Stay back! Stay back! The gases!”
An officer, his eyes haggard and his clothing in tatters, gives us the explanation.
The bombs brought by the aircraft and sheltered under tarpaulins have suddenly exploded, setting fire to the airplanes and scything down the fleet’s personnel.
Murder!
He does not form that thought precisely, but everyone understands, and with an instinctive movement, turned toward the mysterious Ossat.
Again, a profound silence reigns over the plain.
We go back to the inn in order to avoid the bite of the cold. As best we can, we block up the openings of the windows devoid of glass with the aid of bundles of straw and blankets.
Large log fires render the room a semblance of heat.
I continue to shiver until dawn, always expecting a further disaster.
Finally, daylight appears.
On reading the mental distress of those surrounding him in their dolorous faces, Luissant searches for words of comfort, which ring false.
Oh, Roger, Roger, if a vengeful God exists somewhere, will your dementia earn you forgiveness for your crime?
During those dolorous reflections, I walk instinctively toward the Ossat, my eyes fixed on the terrible mount.
But what is that white thing falling along the mass of black granite? Something draws away from the wall, gently pushed by the breeze, descending slowly toward the plain. One might think that it’s one of those paper parachutes sold in bazaars as children’s toys.
Soldiers run toward the object that arrives from the sky. They take possession of it, and assemble around it.
Then the circle breaks. A sergeant comes toward me. In his hand he holds an envelope of gummed cloth.
“A letter, Monsieur,” says the sergeant. “It must have come from up there. Perhaps you’ll take charge of giving it to Monsieur the President...”
On the Brink of the World's End Page 34