lung-power at the other end and terminating with: "What is it?"
"Are you all well down there?" shouted the lieutenant.
"All well! We have a shell in the engine-room, the men in the
forward stokeholds are all suffocated--and we have dropped to 100
revolutions--what is happening with you above? Tell me for God's sake!
It is hell here!"
"We carry on--_für Gott und Kaiser_!" yelled the lieutenant in reply.
At the helm, he kept the cruiser steadily on her new course. Every
moment he expected to feel the shock of more hits but none came.
Evidently they were getting out of range. It seemed curious with
the known lessening of the ship's speed, but there was the fact.
Encouraged, he shouted down the tube to the engine-room to get all the
speed they could. "We are running out of danger!" he added cheerfully.
"Find out what has happened to the ship if you can--all communications
are broken." For a long time he waited for a reply, but none came. His
shouts down the tube elicited no response. Thus isolated from the life
of the ship of which he was actually in command he kept on his course,
bearing every now and then a little more to the west in his fear of the
ships towards the north-east. How long he continued thus he could not
tell. Every now and then he glanced at the clock in front of him. It
marked always the same time. It was broken.
Rolling heavily, the cruiser ran onward, unmolested. The three men
began to converse cheerfully. The possibility of escape now seemed to
them a probability. The lieutenant also began to indulge the same hope,
but the whereabouts of the ship which had engaged them worried him.
Suddenly there was a terrific shock, another red illumination of the
slit at the top of the armour-wall, another tremendous roar. Two men
who had been leaning against the wall fell dead without a scratch. The
impact had killed them. The other man had sprung to the lid of the
manhole, was beating against it with his fists and screaming like a
maniac. Presently he sank down and hid his face in his hands, moaning
like a terror-stricken child. The lieutenant ignored him in an agony of
apprehension. Were they overtaken?
Outside, explosion followed explosion. The floor of the conning-tower
listed steeply to starboard, and with every lift and drop of the vessel
the bodies about his feet slid towards the wall. Suddenly, to his
horror, he saw a wisp of smoke issuing from the voice-tube leading to
the engine-room. What had happened? Had they stopped? As the ship dived
down a wave he tuned himself to sensitiveness. He felt the momentary
race of the screws threshing the air, just perceptible. Thank God, they
were still moving! The succession of detonations outside never ceased.
He could only guess at their effect and the direction from which the
projectiles came. Assuming the enemy to be still to starboard, he put
the helm hard over in a last despairing effort to run out of range. The
compass card whirled round in the wrong direction! The steering-gear
had gone.
The ship no longer rose to the seas. She rolled heavily from side
to side in the trough of the waves. The lieutenant looked around
helplessly at the bodies on the floor, at the wrecked indicators, at
the useless wheel, at the man who rocked to and fro with his head in
his hands. His continuous pitiful moaning exasperated the lieutenant
to madness. He drew his revolver and commanded him, with frenzied
vehemence, to be quiet. The man stared wildly at the muzzle of the
revolver, opened his mouth as though about to shriek, and collapsed in
a dead faint.
The lieutenant turned from him and went to the observation slit. As
the ship lifted clumsily sideways on a wave he had a view of a dark
grey cruiser driving through the mist, quite close--on the port side!
This was a new unsuspected enemy. Water was streaming from her decks
as she rose buoyantly on the sea. A string of flags fluttered along a
halyard from her mast. She seemed as normal as a ship on manoeuvres.
Suddenly half a dozen spurts of bright flame broke from her dark sides.
The lieutenant felt the ship under his feet shiver and stagger in a
deafening roar. Then he felt the weight of his body heavy against the
wall of the conning-tower. He was lying almost horizontal against
that wall. Through the slit he looked out upon confused water only,
in the place of sea and sky. A great wave rolled straight towards
him, splashed against the conning-tower, poured through the slit in a
torrent. He sprang back in pitch darkness, fighting with both hands in
a last instinctive struggle for life. The solid floor went from under
him, human hands clutched at his legs, blindly feeling up his trousers.
He kicked--choking--in a rayless night.
* * * * *
Hull-down on the horizon a German battle-cruiser was reporting a
strange vessel that had suddenly appeared, challenged and received
her fire, and then run back into the midst of British cruisers which
had immediately sunk her. Emden sent disquieting answers to urgent
enquiries.
The great wireless station at Nauen received the news of another
inexplicable disaster.
THE AIR SCOUT (1914)
A large level meadow bit squarely into the edge of the woodland. The
centre of the space enclosed on three sides by trees as by a wall was
an empty stretch of turf, browned by much traffic and littered with
scraps of paper which are the inevitable deposit of any congregation
of human beings. The left-hand side was occupied by a neat row of
slate-grey motor-lorries. The right showed an equally neat array of
tents and sheds over which hung a faint film of wood-smoke. At regular
intervals along the third side a series of placards was affixed to the
tree-trunks, each exhibiting a conspicuous number like stands at a
cattle-show. The stands, however, were vacant. In front of the sheds
on the right stood a little group of men in khaki, and near them two
men in shirt and trousers were busy at a portable forge whence issued
the film of smoke. The hammer-strokes of those men were visible and
evidently delivered with force, yet, curiously enough, at a little
distance they appeared to fall in silence.
[This description must not be taken as representing the vastly
developed organization of the flying services to-day (1917). The
incident is, of course, quite imaginary. The story was written some
time before the war.]
A vast noise that came from beyond the wood swallowed all other sounds.
The drowsy air of the hot noon trembled with concussions so rapid that
they merged into one deep-throated, deafening roar. The field was the
aeroplane depot of the Army. The roar was the roar of the battle which
that Army was fighting.
Despite the apparent nearness of the strife, there was little of
military spectacle about the depot. At the corner of the wood a
squadron of dismounted troopers stood by their horses. A little further
back, along the rough lane which led into the field, a gun mounted on
a motor-lorry stuck its nose perpendicularly into the air. Three or
four men sat on the lorry in easy attitudes and one stood up, glasses
to his eyes, scanning the blue sky. The group of khaki-clad men paid no
more attention to them than they did to the battle-din which swelled
over the woodland. They were absorbed in contemplation of a large
curious-looking bush which stood a few yards in front of them.
A closer look at that bush revealed that it was artificial. It was,
in fact, a largish shed whose walls and roof were composed of green
boughs. Men were busy within it and a shaft of sunlight that penetrated
the leaves fell in a patch of gold upon some yellow fabric. The object
thus illuminated was the wing of a small, single-seater monoplane.
A little apart from the other members of the group a slightly-built
young fellow, garbed for the ascent, stood in earnest colloquy with
a tall, lean staff-officer. Behind them the others conversed in
tones just loud enough to be heard in the incessant roar. They were
discussing the disaster of the dawn.
The blow of the enemy had been terrible. The Army had been smitten in
its eyes. It was now only a blind giant striking at an adversary whose
vision was unimpaired. The entire air-squadron of the force, rising
from its harbourage at the break of day, had been suddenly assailed by
a superior fleet that dropped out of the clouds upon them. Watchers
from below had seen short lightning flashes stabbing the grey mist, had
heard a sharp outbreak of firing, had seen phantom aeroplanes rising,
circling, swooping, colliding in thin cloud, had seen the machines
one after another tumble and dive, lapped by flames, in a sickening
rush to earth. Not theirs alone now lay, crumpled and contorted masses
of scrap-iron, over the countryside, but of theirs none had escaped.
The rear of their battle-line was a picture that his scouts could
report upon at leisure. What lay at the rear of his? None knew, but
the vehemence of his fire told that he was pressing his advantage. The
presentiment of defeat lay heavy on the little group as they disputed
on the blame to be allotted for the catastrophe.
The staff-officer tugged impatiently at his little grey moustache.
His teeth champed at a bit of grass that was no longer there. In his
anxiety he had not noticed that it had fallen from his mouth.
"I wish those chaps would be quick," he said. "The General is most
anxious to have that flank cleared up."
"They are being quick, sir," replied the aviator, with a smile. His
keen, thoughtful face showed that he was not indifferent to the urgency
of the situation, but his calm mouth told of nerves that nothing
could shake. Within that green bower lay the one hope of the Army--its
lightest and swiftest monoplane, damaged in landing the day before, now
being repaired as fast as skilled hands could do the work.
"You quite understand, don't you?" said the staff-officer, repeating
himself for the tenth time. "The General thinks that a movement is in
progress against our right flank. A screen is extending there which
he cannot penetrate. If they are moving a large force round us he can
detach the Sixth Division to hold them, and with a massed attack he'll
crumple up their left centre which they must have weakened. He'll
repeat Salamanca, that's what he said--I don't know what happened at
Salamanca," he concluded irritably, "but anyway he daren't move a man
till he's sure. I wish your chaps would get finished." He looked up
into the air above him with a circling glance. "How many have they got
now?"
"Four, I make it," replied the aviator equably. "They had ten
yesterday. Five were smashed up this morning. One got winged an hour
ago."
At that moment a dirty and perspiring man came out of the bower and,
approaching them, saluted.
"Ready, sir," he said.
"Right. Get her out, then," said the aviator. "No! Wait!" His gaze had
gone up to the sky. "There he comes again."
"D--n!" said the staff-officer, staring upwards also.
High in the air an aeroplane was coming towards them, parallel with
their own battle-line. In the swollen roar of the conflict, the hum of
its engine was inaudible. It seemed to drift onward leisurely enough,
sinking slightly as it approached but well above effective gun-fire.
Tiny white dots of smoke that sprang into the air below it were a proof
of that. Slowly, as though making a careful examination, it passed
overhead. Suddenly it turned and dropped still lower, coming back
towards them. Something had awakened suspicion in the men up there.
The reason for that artificial bush became apparent. The staff-officer
gazed at the aeroplane, now rapidly enlarging itself in his vision, as
though mesmerised. Anxiety for that precious machine under the leaves
paralysed him.
The aviator had turned to look at the gun on the motor-lorry. The group
about it sat in quiet expectation. Its muzzle moved gently, came a
little out of the perpendicular. The aviator looked up again at the
machine drifting overhead. He heard a sudden heavy detonation on his
left and almost simultaneously he saw a bright flash appear in the
dark body of the aeroplane. The machine lurched, toppled, dived, and,
falling rapidly, turned bottom up in the air. A couple of dark figures
fell out, raced it in its rush to the ground. A long minute later it
struck the centre of the field. Flames burst out of a shapeless wreck.
The aviator did not heed it. He ran towards the bower.
"Quick!" he cried. "Get her out!"
Torn down by twenty pairs of eager hands, the bower fell apart. The
little monoplane was run out, lay like a dragon-fly resting lightly on
the earth.
The aviator climbed into his seat between the wings, sent a glance from
the compass to the map held open in its frame, saw that the message
bags were ready to his hand, tested the strap of the field-glasses
hanging from his neck with a sharp tug. He was ready. In front of him
two soldier mechanics stood holding the long blades of the tractor
screw. Over there, beyond the wood, the uproar of the battle mounted
in violent paroxysms each of which surpassed its predecessor. The tall
staff-officer approached and held out his hand.
"Good-bye--and good luck," he said, "and for Heaven's sake let us
know what's happening on that flank. Don't wait to get back--drop the
message." He looked at his watch. "It's now twelve--if we don't know
something within an hour it's all over with our chance. Can you manage
it?"
"I'll try, sir," said the aviator, checking the hour with a glance at
his own clock.
The staff-officer turned an anxious pair of eyes upward for a swift
look into the sky, seemed about to make a remark and then obviously
refrained. "Good luck!" was all he could trust himself to say.
The aviator smiled and nodded cheerfully. Then he ejaculated a sharp
order to the mechanics. They flung the blades of the tractor into
revolution. The machine, emitting a series of riflelike reports,
commenced to run across the field. The tractor became a blur.
The woodland appeared to rush towards him and then suddenly dropped
away in a diagonal underneath. His eyes on the dial of the barograph,
the aviator warped the machine round and set the planes to an acute
angle of elevation. Confident in the power of his engine he mounted
steeply in a spiral. The record on the dial rose with every second--100
feet--200--400. In two and a half minutes he had risen 1000 feet. He
cast a swift look below him. He was still over the field, had a glimpse
of a group of tiny figures clustered in front of the sheds. The rim of
the horizon came up, the earth fell into a great concavity. It was like
looking down into a vast bowl containing woods and fields and flattened
hills. From the bowl clouds of yellow-grey dust arose like smoke and
out of the dust came a multiplicity of heavy crashes that detached
themselves from a background of unceasing clatter mingled with one long
rolling thunderous roar.
It was but a hasty glance the aviator threw below him. Still mounting,
his eyes searched the blue air on a level with himself, above him. The
enemy's three machines where were they? Far off to his left a dark
speck hung in the sky. He watched it intently as his machine climbed.
It was a biplane. It appeared to be drifting away from him, engaged in
a reconnaissance of their left flank, he decided. At any rate as yet
they seemed not to have perceived him. The others were not visible. He
shot a glance at the barograph--3000 feet. He had been climbing for
five and a half minutes. Almost immediately he saw a trail of smoke
ascending with incredible velocity in the air a little below him to his
right. The trail finished abruptly in a vivid flash, a burst of white
smoke and a violent detonation. The monoplane rocked from side to side
in the sudden disturbance of the air but continued to climb. A second
later a similar trial ended in an explosion at a level with him on his
left. He saw a gash appear suddenly in the fabric of one of his planes,
and the needle of the barograph switch back 50 feet with a jerk. Then
the altitude record mounted again steadily--3250--3500--4000. The noise
of the battle diminished as he rose, dropped to a point where it was
all but obscured by the roar of his own engine. Below him the smoke
trails leaped up at him and burst viciously in vain.
Four thousand five hundred--he glanced at the hostile biplane to his
left and saw that it hung larger in the sky. Even in the moment for
which he watched it it dilated. It was approaching at top speed. He was
discovered, pursued. Instantly he turned off to his right and raced
across the battlefield in the direction of the threatening flank. As he
did so, he perceived another aeroplane rising from the enemy's lines.
It climbed swiftly in bold swoops and then shot off towards him in a
great upward slant. Two! Where was the third? He failed to discover it
and held on his course.
His direction was at an angle across the battlefield which took
him towards the enemy's left flank rather than to their own right.
As he sped over it, he looked down upon a broad miles-long belt of
yellow-grey dust that rose raggedly into the air, and was spotted with
an innumerable multitude of white puffs that renewed themselves as fast
as they were dissipated. In many places these puffs congregated thickly
and, as they broke, linked themselves with others until they floated
like little narrow clouds in the air below him. As he looked down into
the great concavity of the earth he seemed to be over some enormous
smoking fissure in a crater whose circumference was the horizon. The
rumble and roar which ascended from it assisted the illusion. Tiny
sparks of flame darted and flickered in the fumes of that inferno, and
here and there flashed a number of glittering points, the reflection of
the sun from advancing bayonets. To distinguish men was impossible, but
in occasional rifts in the dust curtain he could make out brown patches
of varying size, and, over to his left, on the enemy's side, similar
though darker patches.
He could permit himself no sustained scrutiny of the scene below him
for the management of the machine began to claim all his attention.
Even at that great height above the battle, the air on that windless
day, shaken and riven by the unceasing concussions of the massed
artillery of two armies, was full of flaws. The needle of the barograph
flickered, oscillated violently in leaps to and fro. The monoplane,
tilted dangerously, now on one side, now on the other, in eddies of the
tortured atmosphere, slid downward dizzily ere it could be brought up
to climb a bank of air. It needed strong arms at the controls, a quick
brain and nerves of perfect tone to keep her upon the appointed course.
Glancing back, the aviator saw that the flight of the nearer of the two
hostile machines, the one which had risen from the enemy's lines and
was now approaching him on his left, was similarly erratic.
An overpowering heat, as from a vast open furnace, arose from the
battlefield below. It was the heat from thousands of explosions,
renewed incessantly and sustained over many hours. Stifling gusts
blew on to the aviator's face, carrying with them a peculiar smell of
burning cloth. With these gusts the roar of the battle seemed to leap
up to him. The air was oppressive despite the speed at which he clove
it, highly charged with electricity, heavy with the menace of a storm.
Yet no cloud broke the monotony of the blue sky. The machine raced
onward, was now crossing the battle lines of the enemy's left flank.
Suddenly he heard a faint rattle behind him. The hostile aeroplane,
realising that it had failed to head him off, was firing furiously.
He felt the machine shiver under a quick succession of hard raps.
Instinctively, he pressed upon his accelerator, and, with a touch on
the warping lever, the machine shot forward at terrific speed. The raps
ceased. He turned his head and saw his enemy rapidly diminish in size
behind him, saw that the other aeroplane, the one he had seen first,
had fallen far in rear. A confident smile came on the tight lips of the
aviator. He could outpace them both.
He was now above the enemy's left flank--a little to the right of the
spot that the Commander-in-Chief had designated as the object of his
possible attack. The scout switched off his engine and commenced to
drop along a slant towards the centre of the enemy's position. With the
sudden silencing of his engine the roar of the battle came up at him
in a crash and stayed there. He glanced at the time--12.13--and gave
himself a limit of two minutes in which to reconnoitre. For the moment
he ignored his adversaries in the air. As he gazed down through the
transparent panel between his feet, his glasses to his eyes, the ground
that slid away under him appeared to be subjected to a constantly
increasing magnification. Fields, houses, roads grew momentarily more
distinct. Without taking his gaze from the scene below the aviator
checked the drop of his machine and drove forward. Quickly his trained
eye took in the details of the ground, the position and approximate
numbers of the men that he saw massed in dark patches here and there.
Over a long stretch of the position the enemy's line was obviously
thinner. The country behind it was empty of troops. The General's
intuition was correct. The enemy had weakened his left centre. Point
Number One was settled. Now what had he done with the troops he had
withdrawn?
As the aviator turned his machine to reconnoitre in the new direction,
he was surprised to see the hostile aeroplane between him and his
objective. Absorbed in his scrutiny of the ground, he had all but
forgotten it. It was slightly higher than himself and about half a mile
distant. He could not carry out his reconnaissance without coming into
fatal proximity to its machine-gun, and he could not return directly
over the battle lines without passing between the crossed fires of this
and the other machine now drawing close. Even as the realisation of his
position flashed on him, a narrow slit appeared in one of his planes.
The nearer of his foes was already firing.
Quicker than thought he turned and raced off into the country behind
the battle. A plan, the only one with a possible chance of success,
had sprung into his mind. He had no intention of failing in this
all-important mission of his. But first he must get out of the range
of that deadly machine-gun. He dared not rise across it at barely
half a mile range. At full speed he raced away, inclining his machine
downwards. The hostile aeroplane followed, depressing her course
likewise, to get him into the zone of her fire or to force him to the
ground. The scout's speedometer registered 100 miles an hour. Beneath
his feet he had glimpses of trees and houses and fields flitting past
in a stream where salient features prolonged themselves into long
blurred lines. They looked oddly large after the altitude at which he
had been contemplating them. He threw a glance over his shoulder at his
pursuers. The nearer was now rather more than a mile away. The other
had apparently given up the chase. The clock showed 12.15; in less
than two minutes he distanced his adversary by nearly a mile--he had
therefore a superiority in speed of about twenty-five miles per hour.
He did not consciously deduce this result. His trained mind working
with incomputable swiftness under the stimulant of imminent danger
gave the result like an intuition. His plan presented itself to him
completely formed. At this distance he could risk the danger zone of
the machine-gun for the few moments he would be in it. He swerved his
machine upward and climbed steeply. In a minute the other aeroplane was
level with him; beneath him. The scout rose along a slant, slowing
down his engine until his pace was almost equal to that of the machine
below. Both rose steadily.
The battle din ceased altogether behind him. He flew in the seeming
silence of the roar of his own engine and the deeper bass of the
other machine, just audible, below. He bent forward over his map and
picked out his approximate position. Then he noted a village some
twenty miles in rear of the battle, and drew an imaginary line from it
south-westward to the enemy's left flank. That village was to serve
as turning-point. He should reach it, he calculated, at 12.27. The
barograph indicated 3000 feet and still rising.