FATE OF THE SIX MILLIONS
Late in the day of the Prince’s visit to Chinnery, London was again
agaze at the boat in the air: for Oyone had forced the ever-pliant
Chinnery to take her over Harrow, and this time made herself fully
mistress of the two or three little tricks of its working.
To be the _Fu Jen_ of Li Ku Yu one day!—this had become her mania—to
ride at his side—to attain to that. Alone of the men whose eyes fell
upon her Li Ku Yu had pooh-poohed her: and for this thing, apart from
her audacious ambition, she had made the man her famine, her madness,
her star.
And he had promised “though she squinted.” Had he forgotten? Why did
he not recall A-lu-te and her from banishment? She could never bring
herself to remind and pray him, but waited, hoping: and as the years
passed a fury of rancour grew in her heart.
So, when she had heard the Prince utter those words, “six millions,”
she had paled, it was such a lot in China, could buy her much favour
there. And she got from Chinnery all that would probably happen in the
expedition.
During the next three days Chinnery was much in the yard, helping
with the building; and she with a busy brain watched him from a
workroom-window—no one else in the house, Monty being a morning
phenomenon.
At about two on the Monday a load of different kinds of bombs and
shells arrived, and she watched Chinnery and three bluejackets pack
them into the boat’s holds, with some rifles, some that were left over
being put into Chinnery’s own boat: for Chinnery, unable to disobey any
bidding, was going, though with secret bitterness, and had increased
the speed of his boat to keep pace; and Oyone ran down, handled a
shell, tried its weight—a mass that had marked across it “4-inch Shell,
Special Type, Firth, 5 Calibres,” and, as she laid it down tenderly,
threw her eyes mutely to the skies.
At four Chinnery was again in the yard, showing to seven bluejackets
the boats’ working; and two of them, getting into boats, rose into the
air, as one rises in a lift: whereupon Chinnery, while the rest were
gazing upward, took flask from pocket, and showed it, emptied, to Oyone
at the workroom window—with a wink; on which Oyone ran down for the
flask, ran with it to a sitting-room cabinet, filled it with Chianti,
then dropped into the Chianti three drops of liquid out of a pigmy
flagonette of greyish jade from her pocket; and ran to Chinnery.
Till four-thirty the men were up and down in twos and threes in the
boats; then arrived the Prince and two lieutenants together, and
Chinnery, in hurrying to the front-door, whispered to Oyone at the
closet-door: “I am feeling beastly bad! I can’t go!”
“Oh, you must,” she said.
When the three entered she peeped from within the closet; and when
they had hurried through to the yard, she stood within the back-door,
hearkening.
When the officers had been saluted by the men, Chinnery first showed
them the boats’ working, and then commenced to explain their scientific
principle; but the Prince, who was all business and briskness, cut him
short, saying: “Another time, Richard: we are late, let’s start.”
“I was just going to give the fellows some whisky,” said Chinnery.
“Then, do be quick.... Long trip.... Show them _Mauretania_....”
The men now trooped inwards after Chinnery, who, as he passed by Oyone,
anew whispered: “Dear, it is impossible, I _can’t_ go.”
“What’s the matter?” she whispered: “you must try.”
The Prince, meanwhile, and the two lieutenants went from boat to boat,
prying into the mechanism; and said one: “Does your Royal Highness
understand the principle of this thing?”
“Not a bit so far,” answered the Prince: “it seems to me an
impossibility. Here are electro-magnets, keepers, wire-ropes connecting
the keepers with the deck: and it seems clear that it is tension in the
ropes that lifts the boats. But a magnet’s attraction of a keeper is
equalled by the keeper’s attraction of the magnet: so that the downward
pull on each magnet-support should be equal to the tension in the rope,
and the boat should not rise—so far as I can see. The secret of it
probably lies under this tin thing here, which he seems to intend to
protect what’s under it from rain.... He says it’s simple; I’ll find
out to-morrow; and may let you into it. I wish he’d come....”
There lay the eleven boats in a row, very roughly knocked together—long
six-sided things, 20 feet long, 5 high, their decks narrow and short
in comparison with their bottoms, which broad bottoms were slightly
hollow to act as parachutes in case of mishap from lightning; and each
bottom had on it two levers, one lever-end to press upon a spring near
the bow-point, the other upon a spring near the stern-point, and they
were of an angelic ingenuity to prevent the boat from dipping bowwards
or sternwards in the greatest gale; nor could she rock much, for with
these two levers were associated two heavy masses of lead, one for’ard,
one aft, so that the centre of gravity was very low, and equilibrium
so stable, that one could move freely about; the deck, moreover, was
supported on powerful coil-springs.
When Chinnery and the men returned, the Prince was already in his seat,
and now everyone was buttoning great-coats and gloves, it was the
moment of departure, and no one had eyes to notice how ghastly bad one
of them was looking.
The Prince now again mentioned to the men the signification of the
variegated pistol-lights to be fired as signals; a lieutenant reminded
them where the grub had been put; and at nine minutes to five the
Prince started a little oil-engine, depressed a lever connected with a
ratchet-wheel, and went up.
And swiftly the swarm of ten was aloft, and gone.
Chinnery alone remained, Oyone now standing with him by his boat at
the shed-door; and, “Something is wrong,” he sighed, his palm on his
forehead, “I can’t——”
“Try,” she said, lifting to his a face as wan as wax, as wan as his:
“drink a little of this.”
She produced the same flagonette from which she had poured three drops
into his wine.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Ginseng,” said she.
He knew that ginseng was her cure for all human woes, and, to humour
her, took the flagonette, having long got into the habit of doing her
bidding mechanically; and then—anything for a drink.
He glanced guiltily round, drank a gulp, and at once staggered against
the door-post, where with his forehead dropped forward, he stood
ten, fifteen seconds; then sighed, staggered backwards, staring,
death-struck, into the shed, fell among boards and shavings, and lay
still.
On which she with her wild white face went flying into the house, flew
out again under a load of furs, a spade, a saw, hurled them into the
boat, clambered in, started the little engine, depressed the lever; and
her planet sank and sailed away from under her, and left her in space.
Two miles away eastward she saw the swarm of boats: she depressed a
lever behind her, and followed.
The wind was almost ahead, rather raw, and, though not strong, it soon
harangued the ear to weariness with its wrangling and ceaseless tongue
at the boat’s irruption and rush through it.
But, though heard, it was hardly felt, for the gunwale for’ard was
higher than the steerer’s head, so that she had to lean a little aside
to see the boats ahead.
She sat at a square hole in the deck, her feet on one of two
ladder-steps that led to the bottom, tiller-ropes in hand: and after
the first two minutes a sense of perfect security warmed and welled in
her.
Passing over Chelmsford, she buried herself within fur on fur, drank
some ginseng, lit a cigar, and throwing back her throat, began to sing
loud, to howl a song, blasphemously above the thundering of the blast.
Meantime, she took care to keep her distance behind—the speed like the
elevation being regulated by a ratchet-wheel; and the swarm in front
thought that in her boat was Chinnery.
As they left Colchester on the left, and took the sea at Clacton, she
shrieked to heaven like a fury: “_Come, Li Ku Yu!_”
Down there below appeared a little fleet of seven submersibles with
their mother-ship, making apparently for Harwich; and here or there a
sail that looked stuck in the centre of immensity.
Soon, however, as she went on and on over the sea without any sense of
motion or progress—for one wave was twin-brother to every other—a first
fear occurred to her when she began, in a reaction to feel sleepy—sleep
meaning, she knew, that the petrol might exhaust itself, and the boat
would go down, perhaps into the sea. She began to sing again, but
lugubriously low in her throat, moaning gloomy things to the sea-gulls
and the gust.
As the sun went down from its clouds and glories, now ahead appeared a
crowd of glow-flies—the boats’ green starboard, scarlet port, and white
lantern-lights, some above her, some below, scattered, yet forming
something of a bunch.
Now darkness reigned awfully, and with it a little drizzling of
something; no moon to be seen; but between cloud-masses brand-new stars
were crackling in crowds, not lying round any sky, but profoundly back
in the bowels of the boundless black.
They were over the glow that The Hague made when a pink pistol-light
from the foremost boat cut the night.
This meant “Assemble”; and presently a blue shine shooting meant
“Stop”; whereupon one of their number dropped to earth at a village to
make sure of their whereabouts, though, as the wind was nearly ahead,
little lee-way was to be feared.
Meantime, the Prince and the rest, very perplexed and worried as
to Chinnery, were thinking: “He must have turned back!”—for the
half-caste, hiding in the night, had not lighted any of her lights.
Then when the investigator had mounted again and howled out “_Hague!_”
a green glow streamed out, and the voyage was resumed; nor did it stop
again, save once over a hamlet three miles from Brandenburg, whence
they made a straight fly for Berlin.
Over the western suburbs the pilot signalled “Lights out,” and flying
as low as 1000 feet so as to be just visible to each other in the
off-shine of the city, they went on eastward: the hour then 10.45.
Moving slow over the parts of Berlin eastward of the Thiergarten, they
found the town in a state of the greatest uproar and eruption—hurrahs
that rang and reigned in the air like echoes of cataracts—for no people
on earth can cheer and blow off steam like Germans—national songs sung
by multitudes, houses gala with flags, crowds careering through some
streets, or standing blocked before some balcony or façade.
At the Austrian Embassy opposite that old home of M. Benedetti, so full
of memories of ’71, the boat’s glasses saw a throng so thick, that a
cigar-end remained on the back where it had dropped from a boat; and,
even as the unseen boats moved over them, a roar broke out like a clap
at the sight of the Ambassador standing, all smiles, on the balcony.
The fact was, that tidings of the _Mauretania_ fight had not long
arrived, to be at once hailed as a great German victory: for the
two Germans, though sunk, had sunk a far greater weight of metal,
and had achieved their objective—the destruction or capture of the
_Mauretania_. Whereupon—_Hoch!_ reeling beer-gardens, gush, flushed
foreheads, flags, promiscuous dancing, hot heads, hats on high,
hurrahs, special late editions—the tumult of the newsboys’ hootings
through the Unter den Linden soaring distinctly above the other tumults
to the boats. England’s day was done—call it to the stars!—another sun
dawning.
At the Schloss the Emperor and Crown-Prince had but now presented
themselves, when the crowd of ten boats cruised that road, for the
roaring remained present in the air like an evaporation exhaling. What
was moving in the gloom above their glee they little knew; as those
above them little knew what was above _them_.
Meantime, a fresh scheme had entered the Prince’s head, his eyes now
sparkling in spiteful thought; he turned, and after following the
boulevard westward, bent six points northward toward Bismark Strasse,
and the Spree.
He came to rest over a block of building by the river, twice blew a
whistle, and slowly descended upon the building’s top.
Now he ran soft a little to stretch his limbs; and, as the next boat,
Lieutenant Pilcher’s, touched the roof, he ran to whisper: “Palace of
the General Staff—_documents_!”
And by the time the others had alighted, these two had discovered an
iron trap-door between two slate-roofs separated by areas of lead; and
the whisper went forth: “Bring rifles and a lantern.”
Lying flat, the ten got the trap-door up, and then, the lantern first,
the Prince next, they stole down an iron ladder into a vast low place
full of dust and darkness, save for one square of light in the centre
of its floor. To this with thieves’ feet they went, lay down, and
peered beneath.
Here some wooden ladder-steps led down into a room: and they saw there
a man in spectacles reading a paper at a table that had two stoups of
beer on it, he in undress uniform, his cap on; and by a bed a woman
undressing, abusing the man, who read and took no notice; and a redness
of coke roared in a stove.
All in a wink the man was on his back under the Prince, a handkerchief
in his throat; the woman was in strange arms, her mouth stuffed up;
and Pilcher, who knew languages, was saying: “Don’t struggle! or we
brain you!”
They then tore the bedclothes into strips, tied up the two, and taking
the remainder of the strips, went out.
The place appeared not less vast in its darkness than a deserted city,
and they had treaded a journey of interminable corridors and noble
stairs, searching for some open door, before they came upon any sign of
life—an off-shine of light afar at a corridor-end. They crept that way.
On prying round the corner, they saw the next corridor lit, and a
sentinel stalking in the German toe-first way—a strapping “tapferer
Krieger” of the 17th (West Prussian), who had heard talk of English
beef, but never yet tasted.
“Eyes front!”—too late. See the Prince sprinting like a spirit in his
socks! and like a cat he sprang and had him, Pilcher next. And from
first to last not a sound from the man in the hands of handy Jack, but
the crash of his tumbling musket.
The fellow lay writhing and grinding at his fetters, gurgling at his
gag, his eyes gloating out of his head upon the ten rough ghosts
grouped over him.
And now the Prince turned to the guarded door, which had “Ratstube” in
gold letters over it; and he very slowly moved the handle, and looked
in.
In there, seated all round a long table in solemn conclave, he saw the
leaders of Germany.
A large hall with walls of pallid apple-green; the table all a medley
of plans, maps, documents, books, charts; and they sat on large chairs
that gleamed.
Most of them the Prince knew well—Count von Athem at the far head,
Chief of the Army General Staff, and near at the foot Prince Radziwill
of Prussia, Inspector-General of the Navy: for it was a General
Conference of both branches of the Imperial Forces; and there in the
centre was Grand-Admiral von Bräckner, Chief of the Admiral Staff,
near Field-Marshal Prince Albrecht of Prussia; and yonder that bald
skull and walrus moustache of Graf von Grossmann, Chief of the
Reichs-Marine-Amt, and that piercing peeper in a pig’s face of Naval
Secretary of State Herr Ohorn-Hartmann—and many other stars, orders,
epaulettes.
The Prince muttered to himself, “_Mauretania_,” flew to put on his
boots, and get his rifle, then, returning to the door, said quite
loudly, “Come, Pilcher, come, Burke,” turned the handle, and was in.
See them now at that table—their faces! if one can call them faces.
There is a bewilderment that is ineffable!
The Prince bowed, grounding his rifle.
“Gentlemen, you are my prisoners,” he said in English.
Each German looked into some other German face to see what German
expression was printed there!
“No doubt you admit yourselves my prisoners,” said the
Prince—“considerable force at hand. Tell them, Pilcher, in French.”
Pilcher bowed, and told them.
Now, it was impossible for them to doubt this: for down in the
courtyard were six sub-sections of a grenadier company on guard, and
their natural assumption, since these spectres stood before their
eyesight, was that those sub-sections had been overpowered.
But prisoners!—in the middle of military Berlin, with Berlin shouting
in victory about them! And if _they_ were prisoners, why, then, the war
was at an end, Germany conquered.
All at once, as if the astonishment had just come upon them, they
sprang unanimously to their feet; and Count von Athem called out:
“How—came you here?”
“Sorry, gentlemen, no time for explanations,” said the Prince: “you
submit to superior force”—and glancing out, he cried: “Let seven of you
come in, and take possession of these papers.”
Whereupon the seven blue-jackets trooped in in their great-coats,
saluted and set briskly to gather up plans, charts, maps, books,
papers, like waiters clearing away.
Meantime, the whisper was running: “It seems to be the Prince of
Wales!” and Graf von Grossmann leant his palms on the table to say:
“May we demand to know——?”
But the Prince interrupted. “I see that you have water and fire,
gentlemen, so I shall lock you temporarily in here. Good-night.” He
went out, locked the door, pocketed the key.
“Pity we aren’t twenty instead of ten,” he remarked, as they went up,
leaving the sentinel in his bonds; but they released the man and woman
above, after locking them in.
The war documents the Prince stowed into his own boat; and soon the
swarm was on the wing north-westward for Spandau.
They arrived in five minutes, Spandau now deep in sleep, when a sound
of great guns roused it—one, two, booms; and 60,000 human beings had
sat up in darkness to hearken at that thing, when a sudden sense of
destruction overwhelmed them all, a foreknowledge of overthrow, as a
thundering broke out among them, and in some moments more the city was
lit with a dusky dawn, as the arsenal darted and took the sky.
This town, besides, was crowded with military establishments, of which
the Prince had well conned the map: so that the Small Arms Factory,
the Gun Foundry, the Military School, the great Horse-market, the
Barracks, the railway, all in turn came under the rain of shells: for
thoroughness is not a quality confined to Germans; and those of the
people who survived that night’s experiences lived through them again
in nightmares to their dying day, and had a stock recurring dream of
screaming streets that ran, like men calling upon the rocks and hills
to cover them.
In the town were some Garde-Grenadiere, No. 4 regiment and half of No.
3, and a battalion of Guard-foot-artillery: but sections of these could
only be mobilised for moments when floods of Tophet burst among them,
and the nerves of men shirked it, they having no idea whence the fire
came, simply found it spouting it in their midst, and supposed Spandau
to be surrounded by two hundred thousand troops.
It was an hour before it entered a dying colonel’s head that this curse
of fire might be coming out of the sky.
And then a 9-pounder balloon-gun, mounted on an armoured motor-car
that had arrangements to resist the recoil of high-angle firing,
was brought out of the Citadel, followed by what was left of the
foot-artillery: for the night-glass of one gallant captain standing out
on the glacis seemed to detect certain specks in the height beyond the
night-mists—though it baffled understanding that aeroplanes could drop
bombs with the precision with which these bombs dropped.
Anyway, the balloon-gun was produced and aimed; but before any shot was
discharged, it and forty-men were shattered in a splash of shrapnel,
and the rest fled through the carnage and darkness of the shrieking and
reeking city.
Within fifty minutes Spandau was a conquered city, every trace of
resistance at an end, and yonder within the Citadel’s vast wall—a
townlet within a town—the Julius Tower was half down.
Berlin, meantime, warned by telephone, was preparing to pour forth
troops; but before these could be moved, the _Ratstube_ door in the
Palace of the General Staff had to be broken open; nor did any troops
enter Spandau that night: for when the Tower was all down, and nine
of the boats were engaged in getting in the gold, a tenth was always
watching the Berlin-road, to throw back any advance.
They found the gold piled in a square vault lined with steel, the mass
occupying some three cubic yards in bars 10 inches long, some of the
bars much broken and battered by the bombardment, inscribed, each of
them, across its middle with “Reichs-Kriegs-Schatz, 54 Kg.” (120 lb.);
and after half-an-hour’s toil in clearing away stone _débris_, they
disposed the boats as conveniently as they could for the loading, threw
out remaining bombs, and set to it, looking like ghouls grovelling
there amid their gleams of green and crimson.
At twelve-thirty the workers heard musketry and balloon-gun booming
going on in the direction of Berlin, but did not stop toiling; and
presently the boat that had been up came down with the report of the
enemy scattered, on which a loaded boat rose to keep guard.
At one-fifty the last bar of gold was dropped into Lieutenant Burke’s
boat, and the blue-jackets were then given leave to gather up the
shattered fragments for themselves, which they did very shamefacedly
and loth, tongue in cheek; everyone now wet with the sweat of the
labour, worn out; and but slightly disposed for the dark flight back.
However, the Prince, who was a tough and merciless worker, would
suggest no rest, for night was their friend; and at three minutes to
two, rising with their three beams burning, they started to return
home, loaded with this portion of France’s war-indemnity to Germany,
which the Prince purposed to return to France.
But, as their lights appeared in the air, the half-caste, who had
been asleep for two hours in the hold of her boat in a field near by,
started her little engine, and darkly followed, flying now well higher
than the swarm.
At this hour the wind was much stronger, had changed several points to
northward, was blowing now on the boats’ starboard quarter, and causing
far more lee-way than the leader seems to have realised.
Consequently, after failing to sight several landmarks, and after
looking out in vain for the lights of Arnhem when they had been in the
air two hours and a half, he became anxious, and shot off pistol-lights
to signify “Assemble” and “Stop.”
It was that dark hour before any sign of dawn, though now Orion away
down by the horizon was brighter and better than the Queen’s Necklace,
and there was one sphere in the sky that seemed a beetle of diamond
beaming, with feet and feelers trembling round it, and very richly the
shivering Fishes were shimmering.
And one of the boats was about to drop for inquiries at a solitary
light in forested country which they could descry south of them, when
a shower of eleven shells in pelting succession tumbled out of heaven
upon the ten boats, as they stood bunched two thousand feet up.
One shell only missed, but was instantly followed by another.
Three did not explode; but still wrecked the mechanism, and laid low
the men.
And the ten boats fell.