hour, sir. There's a stiffish breeze blowing up here, though you
can't feel now, because, of course, we're drifting with it."
"Where will that take us?"
Captain Kettle picked up a parallel ruler and laid it on the German
chart of the North Sea pinned to the table in front of him. "Here's
where we are now"--he drew a line with a pencil and stepped back,
pointing. "And that's the course of our present drift."
"Phew, slap across the Kiel Canal!"
"If the wind doesn't shift, sir. And as that's a thing over which we
have no control, and the starboard engine's beyond repair, I'll ask
you to excuse me, sir, for the next hour. I've a little writing to
do. I've my head full of some really stirring verse, and I want to
get it on paper before it escapes me."
"Feel you've got your argumentative chemist and the Littondale sheep
farmer fixed, eh?"
"I can see the tears hopping down their whiskers, sir. If only we'd
an accordion on board here, I could set to music some new poetry that
I believe would surprise even you."
The short wintry day faded out, and, after a long twilight, night
fell, black, and chill, and starless. Even the high air was not at
peace in this time of universal war. Searchlight beams slashed it
with swift cuts, and the rumbling growl of guns drifted to it from
all quarters and reverberated amongst the clouds. Dewdrops from the
vast gas-bag overhead dripped on to the roofs of the gondolas with a
noise like falling shot. Twice a rattle like machine guns from a
neighbouring cloud told that unseeing aeroplanes were doing
sentry-go. In the after gondola Mr. Martin Carnforth watched Dr.
Mary Brown brew tea on an electric heater, and flirted with her
industriously. In the control station Captain Owen Kettle made
poetry which he felt would shake Upper Wharfedale down to the very
limestone from which it was gouged.
Then land slid into view beneath them, the German land of
Schleswig-Holstein--which is the basic cause of the present war--and
Mr. Martin Carnforth, M.P., lost his temper and flung a teacup and
its steaming contents at the silent starboard engine of the Zeppelin.
Captain Kettle made no demonstration. He had an older acquaintance
with Fate and the Winds of Heaven, and knew that he could change
neither of them. He went steadily on with his literary work. In his
mind's eye he saw the bearded chemist from down the dale writhing
under his next sermon.
"You will let me drop the first bomb on the Canal, won't you?" Dr.
Brown pleaded. "I'm sorry you spilt your tea. Here's another cup.
I'm a suffragette, you know, and it would be a splendid thing for me
if I could say the Kiel Canal and the ships in it were blown up by a
woman."
Carnforth's laugh was rather startling. But his words were suave
enough, as usual. "You can drop the whole caboodle as far as I am
concerned, my dear, and if you smash the canal, or a ship that
counts, I'll endow your excellent society with enough to keep it in
chocolates for the next ten years. But if you watch the ground below
there, you'll see the wind's shifted, and we're drifting north."
"The horrid Zep's twiddling round so much I don't know which is north
and which is south-east."
"Then don't worry to look, my dear, or you'll strain your eyes. By
Jove, you have pretty eyes, too, as I believe I've told you before.
You'll get married one of these days, sharp and quick, before you
know what's happened, if you look at people like that. There, my
dear, you sit down in that corner out of the draught and swig your
tea, and I'll go and have a word with the Admiral."
"The wind," said Captain Kettle, when his friend joined him, "seems
far more flawy up here than one finds it down on the sea. It's
blowing as fresh as ever, but it changes direction from minute to
minute, as you can see for yourself, sir. I believe we shall hit
that canal yet, though at present we can't see----"
At that precise moment two sections of cloud below them slid apart
and rolled up with the quickness of a conjuring trick, and there
below them Schleswig-Holstein lay spread out like a map. It was
striped with railways and glittering with a great canal. Those
lights astern would be Büsum that the Danes fought so bitterly to
hold; there were Heide's electrics immediately below; and that great
glow ahead on the other side of the canal must be Neümunster, where
they make the cloth and the beer and the dyewares.
But it was the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal that held the eye. It was lit
like a street with sizzling arcs. it was busy with a thousand
activities. It was not a mere waterway between towns. It was the
main artery of one colossal city. Launches and passenger boats did
traffic on its surface; the abounding industries of war hummed on its
banks; and in the sidings, moored fore and aft to the great bollards
on the banks, lay the tragic items of the Second Largest Fleet in all
the World. There were Dreadnought and super-Dreadnought battleships,
huge Dreadnought cruisers, and swarming torpedo craft moored there in
inglorious safety--all the kinds of vessels, in fact, that go to make
a navy's complement, except submarines--and, given engine power, the
hovering Zeppelin could have destroyed one after another as though
they had been ships of straw, so long as her supply of bombs held out.
"Whilst as it is," said Carnforth bitterly, "we are just as helpless
and harmless as a Cabinet Minister with a mouthful of words. We're
running parallel to the canal at as accurate a half-mile distance as
if we were geared to a rail. A man's cursed Creation for less."
"Yes, sir," agreed Captain Kettle. "It's annoying. I've been
looking forward to that Rhine Tour more than I've told you, and I am
beginning to fear the chances for it are fading out." The Zeppelin
gave a sudden jump upwards. "By James! who's throwing out my
ballast? By James! sir, that infernal Miss Brown has let go one of
your bombs!"
"And it's falling beautifully. Look there! Straight as a die, now
those vanes have got their grip. Kettle, if I'd the British
air-craft bomb-buyer here, that would be worth a quarter of a million
to me."
"Well," said Kettle dryly, "no one can say I ever dodged trouble.
The band will begin to play if that bomb hits anything solid and
bursts. I hope Miss will like the results."
"It's dropping on that patch of green that looks like marsh. Damn
that girl! Why couldn't she use brains and loose off over something
solid? Glory Alleluia! How's that for a tickle fuse?"
The bomb touched earth, and a volcano spouted. The eye saw it first
as a splendid pyrotechnic picture. Later came the din of the
explosion and an air-wave that set the Zeppelin a'rock like a cork in
a flooded gutter. And almost as soon searchlights spat out from all
the countryside, exploring the zenith, and from that down and round.
The first quivered on to the airship and settled there in twelve
seconds from its start, and ten others promptly followed suit.
The great Zeppelin hung there in the wind, lit like a stage, with a
hundred gun-muzzles swinging on to her, helpless as Montgolfier's
first balloon.
"By James!" said Kettle, "this beats me! Why don't they fire?
Haven't they anti-aircraft guns?"
"I should say the place was stiff with them. But apparently the
private night signal of the home-coming Hun is 'Drop one bomb, and
then sit tight and do nothing,' and it's acted. They think we're
their own pals suffering from engine trouble, and that very nice bomb
was dropped by accident, which happens to be the strict truth. Great
Scott! I wonder how many candle-power of light they're buzzing at us
from that canal?"
"And you believe they're taking us for Germans?''
"I'm dead sure of it."
"By James, sir, I don't like that! I don't know whether you, sir,"
the little sailor added pointedly, "feel the degradation of it, too?"
"I do--oh, I do! But I'm going to stick it for the time being all
the same. Looking down the muzzles of all those infernal guns has
swamped all my better feelings. At this rate of drift we shall be
out of range in another ten minutes, and then I'll be my old brave,
bonny self again. Damn that girl! There! she's dropped another
bomb! Little fool must be as fond of stirring up a wasp's nest as
you are."
In the after-gondola Dr. Mary Brown cowered on a sofa and tickled
delicate machinery with a neat but shuddering toe. "Oh, why didn't
you come when I called?" she demanded when Carnforth opened the door.
"Because I didn't hear you, my dear, for one thing. Have you been
calling me? Glad you've been enjoying yourself, but felt the thing
was not complete without me. What are you playing at now?"
"Trying to prevent more of these beastly things from slipping down
through that hole. Didn't you hear what a noise the other ones made?"
"I believe I did. Quite a little bang. If it tickles you to know, I
dare say the noise has reached Berlin by now. There, take away your
foot; I have set the trigger again. What was your nice little idea
in pulling over the release lever?"
"I thought it was the switch for the water-heater thing we used for
the tea."
Mr. Martin Carnforth gulped--and then sniggered. "Well, you've
jangled Wilhelm's nerves all right, and with one of his own dear
Zeps, too. The suffragette papers ought to give you an awfully fine
par about it."
"Do you think they really will?" asked Dr. Mary Brown hopefully.
"Sure of it, if we get home to report same. But if you're
particularly anxious for newspaper glory, I shouldn't try any more
little games. You see, they are so apt to irritate the Bosches,
who've really got no sense of humour. They are not like us; they
still take their Zeps pretty seriously."
A voice that announced, "Wind's shifting to the s'uthard," made them
both start and move apart.
"Good Lord!" said Carnforth. "I thought that was my chaperon come to
take me home. This telephone is one of the loud-speaking sort,
intended to be heard above the din of the motor-exhausts. Now
they're stopped, it's a bit startling."
"Conscience!" said Dr. Mary Brown archly.
In the meanwhile the huge, helpless airship sidled and whirled at the
sport of the air-currents across towards the Baltic. But with the
edge of that sea beginning to gleam beneath her through the night,
she got into another valley of the winds, and fled away north, down
Schleswig-Holstein.
Captain Kettle by this time had grown thoroughly disgusted with
air-travel over which he had so little control. Moreover, he had
found a very efficient substitute for the actual Rhine Tour of his
ambition, and, as further damage to Germany seemed out of the
question for the moment, he wanted to get back to Upper Wharfedale
for the earliest possible delivery of his epoch-making sermon. So,
as the airship's latest course seemed to be due north, he made up his
mind to bring her to ground before she could change her mind and take
to the seas again, but if possible he proposed that she should carry
him and his crew across the Danish border, so as to avoid further
complications with the German Army. Even Captain Sir Owen Kettle has
had to admit that in these latter days Germans in bulk are likely to
be too well organized to be tackled without adequate resources.
The exit valves for the hydrogen in the many ballonettes all
converged to the control position, and Captain Kettle experimented
with them judiciously, and noted results on the barometer and the
other altitude meters.
The night was inkily dark, and in the grazing country of
Schleswig-Holstein (which was once Denmark) there are few salient
features except for houses and farm villages. These were tucked away
in bed, and showed no lights; and, indeed, up there, in the quiet
night, it was hard to remember that nine-tenths of Europe was flaming
with war. The stillness bred in Kettle's poetic brain the germ of
another idea. He turned again to pencil and paper, and worked it
out. Morning was beginning to thin the night when it was borne in on
him that the Zeppelin was falling.
It was the dawn chill, of course, that did it. With engines running,
he could have turned the hot exhausts into the envelope, and expanded
the hydrogen in the ballonettes, and gained height with ease. Now he
was falling steadily--in fact, rather quickly. Well, that was all
right. The Danish border was close ahead, and he had designed to
come to earth in Denmark. He picked up the telephone and warned the
pair in the after gondola to stand-by for going ashore--and,
incidentally, forgetting the power of that loud-sounding instrument,
caused them to jump.
* * * * *
As far as Mr. Martin Carnforth's personal record goes, that was about
the end of the tale. He was conscious of a heavy blow--it seemed
like several heavy blows all rolled into one, and when he next awoke
to life it was in a bare, clean room that smelt vaguely of cows and
cheese. He was lying on a wooden bed that was too short for him, and
sitting by his side was Dr. Mary Brown. Dr. Brown was wearing a
voluminous skirt made of whitey-brown canvas, and was looking sulky.
There was a smell of pungent cigar-smoke in the room, and tracing
this up, Carnforth's eye lit upon the small, neat form of Captain
Kettle, writing busily at the window ledge.
His eyes worked back again to the skirt which covered Dr. Brown's
voluminous black leather breeches, and this set his thoughts going
again. He chuckled pleasantly at them.
"Hullo, sir," said the little sailor, turning round. "Glad to see
you're getting all right again. You had a bit of a bump."
"It seemed to me several bumps."
"My fault, sir, entirely. I brought her alongside in a way that
ought to cost me my airman's ticket. I told you all along she was a
beast to navigate, but I am not going to excuse myself behind that.
You put your shoulder out in getting ashore."
"And you put it in, my dear?"
"I tried," said Dr. Brown sulkily. "I did my best."
"But you had to call in a second opinion, eh?"
"Well, sir, you see, Miss hasn't had the experience in setting limbs
and putting them into joint that I have. But I think you'll find we
did the job all right between us."
"And where's the Zep?"
"I'm afraid that's a total loss. You see, sir, if the Danes had got
it, being neutrals, they'd probably have traded it back to the
Germans. So I just put a match to the petrol tank before I left. We
were only just across the border, and a whole regiment of German
soldiers skipped over to put out the blaze."
"And didn't they? Quick, man. Don't say they managed it."
"It looked as if some of your bombs got over-heated, sir. She made
one of the finest blow-ups I ever heard, and the great, big
quarry-hole that was left was beginning to fill with water when we
set off for the house. The farmer here seems rather pleased. He
says the great difficulty on this farm has been enough water for
milk-cooling."
"Eh, well, we seem to have made some good Germans after all. And our
little girl with the nice eyes here has had the time of her life,
haven't you, my dear? You appear to be the person that's been mainly
scored off, Captain. You'll have trouble with that chapel if the
Rhine Tour was essential."
"Don't you make any mistake there, sir. I've got that crowd in hand,
and a bit to spare, if Rhine poetry will do it."
"What, you've written the things?"
"I have, sir. It seems to me I generally can write poetry best about
places I haven't seen. Seeing them generally spoils my flow. If I
don't give that chemist Lorely enough to choke him, I'll eat my hat.
These new Rhine Tour poems of mine beat the real thing hands down.
They'll just make the sweat drip off him when I give them from our
pulpit."
X
THE INVENTOR OF MELTITE
Mr. S.J. Livingstone was not a poor man, but I think he may be
described broadly as an ambitious man. He had an air that some
people (other than customers) found arrogant.
Soon after the War began he tried to hold up the British Admiralty
for a million sterling, free of tax, and an earldom; and when this
did not come off, he crossed Whitehall and tried the same game on the
War Office. He got hold of some bland ass there who irritated him
into saying more than was judicious, and left the building under
arrest. The magistrate before whom he was hauled, called in doctors
to inquire into his mental state, and was with difficulty persuaded
to dismiss him with a caution.
He had not gone to either of these seats of military learning on the
strength of his appearance alone. He was a business man, and had no
mind to be fubbed off with underlings. He knew it would require one
of the Heads to be man enough to give him what he asked for, and he
saw to it that weighty introductions carried him direct to a
Head--both at the Admiralty and War Office. The only trouble was,
neither Head that he saw was big enough for his job, or S.J.
Livingstone would have got what he asked for--or been taken out into
the yard and shot before he could talk. For myself, I think I should
have shot him, as being on the whole the safer, and certainly the
cleaner course. However, perhaps that is a matter of taste. You
shall judge for yourself.
But read next a word or two about the man himself. Livingstone, he
called himself, and by reason of a birth in Paisley, affected a
Glasgow accent, rather of the Pollokshields variety. (This is a
cross between cleft palate and German.) His father had been Solomon
Levenstein who had exchanged brutal ill-treatment in the Frankfort
Ghetto for the doubtful delights of being a rabbi in Scotland.
(Conceive a Jewish priest in an atmosphere of Wee Frees, U.P.'s and
Episcopalians!) S.J. Livingstone, son of Solomon Levenstein, never
visited Germany, but loathed it and all its contents from the bitter
tales of Ghetto persecution dinned into him during his upbringing.
Old Solomon, in his way, was a well-read man; S.J. was a
better--mainly in the direction of natural science. I think if
somebody had subsidised S.J. and he had specialized in one or two
branches of chemistry or chemical physics he might have been
something big, though again this is open to question. It is on the
cards that when he discovered something good--Meltite, for
instance--he would have dropped pure research like a hot brick and
struck out boldly for commercial affluence. He was a good deal of a
mixture--which is perhaps the same thing as saying he was altogether
a Jew. For instance; no outsider would have suspected him of
collecting enamels; but he did, lavishly and worshipfully; and told
no one, so that prices should not be raised against him.
In commercial life, S.J. Livingstone was a seller of dyewares in
Bradford (Livingstone & Co., 29, Chapel Row. Agents for Dresdner
Alizerin Gesellschaft. Telegrams:--"Explorer," Bradford). Up to the
beginning of the War, he did pretty well, sold a decent weight of
goods in his office, and more, after the manner of his kind, at the
political club where he lunched, and at the golf club where he kept
his liver down to gauge on Saturdays. On Sundays he was invisible.
He spent half that day in chemical research--he was chasing a cheaper
synthetic indigo--and the other half in gloating over his enamels.
No living soul ever caught him at either. Between whiles his
housekeeper fed him sumptuously, although he bullied her.
After war began he made money hand over fist. How he ran German
dyewares into England without getting dropped on I know, but shall
not tell. Probably the Government knows, too. The British
Government makes a speciality of doing silly things, we all admit,
but it is not what the Oriental calls an All-the-time Fool. We all
knew the Government wanted dyewares to get into the country for khaki
and other things, and, presumably the Government knew when to wink.
Anyway, Livingstone & Co. were the firm with the goods, which they
bought for shillings a pound, and sold for pounds a pound, to S.J.'s
delight, and to the noted increase amongst his enamels. It was just
after last December's balance sheet he cut out the big Yankee
collectors over that bit of old Limoges that Christie's called the
Scarlet Madonna. Also he bought twenty dozen Pommery '06.
Then by an absolute fluke on one Sunday morning he blundered upon
Meltite.
It was untamed enough when he first mixed it, and I gather that he
narrowly escaped with life. As it was, he was badly burned, his
laboratory in the cellar was wrecked, and the City Fire Brigade had
an interesting time salving the balance of the house.
But he was skilled enough at his job, and once he knew the nature of
the mixture he had stumbled upon it was easy to arrange its
proportions so that it could be handled in comparative safety.
Incidentally the City Corporation helped him. They were using a
mechanical mixture of an iron salt and powdered aluminium for welding
together the ends of tram-rails, and he studied their methods. The
Corporation called their stuff Thermit. There is no secret about it.
Thermit is used for a score of purposes, and latterly the ingenious
German loads it into his Zeppelin bombs. S.J. Livingstone's mixture
was like Thermit, only more so. He added to his powdered aluminium a
substance that gave up its oxygen with more astonishing quickness,
with the result of producing even more amazing heat than burning
Thermit gave out.
After inspecting the fused remains of his cellar, the inventor hit
upon "Meltite" as a name for his discovery, and then spent a
rapturous afternoon gloating over his enamels, and thanking Allah
that he kept them in a fireproof safe. He went to the Seascale links
for a couple of days then, and because he was thinking of something
else the whole time, played golf extremely badly. But exercise and
sea air crisped his brain, and lifted his outlook from the retail
view.
Half the world was at war. This was no time for a new Limited
Company, and anyway that infernal Treasury would probably stop a
capital issue. Besides, if he took out a patent, and published a
specification, Germany would jump his claims as surely as mails ran
to Rotterdam.
"No," he declared--and smashed a new driver into the turf and sent
the head flying. "No, a Government is my mark, and the British is
the nearest. The German, of course, would be the easier to handle,
but strafe Germany, anyway--The British Government--and keep the
mixture a secret till they pay--and then let them work it--Caddy,
give me a club that won't break. I think I'll make an iron shot of
this now."
Thereafter he sold the business of S.J. Livingstone & Co., 29, Chapel
Row, Bradford, to an unintelligent Christian (being very shrewdly of
opinion that no more German dyewares would slip through before the
end of the war), and settled down to draw out a prospectus for
Meltite that would convince even a high Government official.
Shells for naval and military cannon, loaded with Meltite, were the
basis of his first idea. On leaving the gun they would be fired by
means of an ordinary time fuse, and could (1) arrive as a mass of
molten steel--highly recommended for annoyance to trenches; or (2)
could warm up after penetrating armour--a special line this for
setting fire to refractory warships.
S.J. Livingstone was not a literary genius, but he was a salesman,
and a man who can unload dye-wares in Bradford and Manchester can
sell anything. His prospectus of Meltite was a gem in its way, and
he was justly proud of it. But he did not send it through the post.
He got the best introductions possible to the biggest man available
at the Admiralty, and took the prospectus in his hand to back up his
voluble tongue.
He failed at the Admiralty to make a sale, as has just been recorded,
but I know no details. All I could get out of him was that the
officials at that office were "a pretty tough lot, but, according to
their limited lights, sound." S.J. did not get his knife into the
Admiralty as he did into the War Office, and I think it was more the
particular "bland ass" (his term) who received him there than the
failure to effect a bargain that got on his nerves. He was always
rather an arrogant man with those he considered weaker than himself.
For a moment, after that second rejection with its police-court
sequel, he was minded to seek the sure market of Germany. They, at
any rate, had no qualms about the methods by which they killed an
enemy, so long as they killed him efficiently, and anyway Germans
knew enough about elementary science to understand a first-class
invention when they saw one. He dined on this, in style, and at the
Café Royal, and came out, and shook a fist at darkened London.