HOW I LEFT THE ‘ATTILA.’
The death of Burnett drove the crew to frenzy, their curses were not
those of men but of fiends. The shock of surprise—the fury that one blow
of their despised victims should have told—goaded them into the mood of
Molochs. Instantly the news flew to Hartmann, who returned a welcome
answer. The yells around me were broken by a burst of laughter.
“What is it?” I asked, fearful of some new horror, full as the measure
of crime now seemed.
“Wait and you will see!” was all the reply I got.
The _Attila_ began to move at a high speed, and four of the men rushed
down on to the lower deck. Quicker! quicker! quicker!—there was no doubt
of it, we were swooping on the City like a falcon. I was at the rail in
a moment, and, careless of uprushing shot and shell, bent over the side
in a fever. Though beyond the zone of flames, a simoom blast swept the
vessel, and puffs of inky smoke spangled with sparks rendered breathing
a torment. But the _Attila_ swerved not an iota. Down we swept like a
hurricane over the yelling maddened throngs massed in Farringdon Street.
Suddenly I heard a sharp cry:
“Stand off!” I had hardly time to draw back when a column of flames shot
up the side, reddening the very bar I had been clutching.
“Let go!”—a crash, the column vanished, and a stream of fire like a
comet’s tail drew out instantaneously in the wake of the _Attila_. It
was the petroleum. The first tank had been lighted, its contents shot
over the shrieking wretches below! For full fifty to sixty yards the
blaze filled the roadway, and the mob, lapped in flame, were writhing
and wrestling within it. A fiendish revenge was glutted. Suddenly I was
hurled violently to the deck as the bow rose sharply. The _Attila_,
buoyed by her aëroplane, shot once more aslant to her old higher level,
firing her guns continuously as she ascended. Sick and surfeited with
horror I remained lying some time where I was. But the end was yet to
come.
[Illustration: POURING DOWN LIQUID FIRE.]
By this time the night was pressing on rapidly, but what a night! I rose
up and staggered to the stern—anything to be away from these wretches.
The hum of the great screw-blades reached me, and I looked over and
yearned that they might fail us. We were now circling over Fleet Street
and the neighbourhood of the Strand. The fires lighted at Westminster in
the morning were carrying all before them, and a crimson yellow rim
stretched all the way from Whitehall to Victoria. On our flank the City
was blazing, and a roaring tumult of flames was undulating in every
direction from this centre. And now for the first time I saw that others
than ourselves were hurrying on the incendiary work below. There were
visible blazing circles in South London over the water, blazing circles
far away in North London, and blazing circles scattered throughout the
West End. The delegates had kept their faith. The great metropolis
seemed doomed. I shuddered to think what the mob might do in their
despair. The West End was even now probably being looted, and the worst
passions would toll its death-knell. I thought of my telegram, and found
some relief in the belief that Lena at least was out of danger.
Suddenly I shook with terror. I had never asked Hartmann whether the
letter and the telegram form had been handed to the delegate. Racing
back to the citadel, I appealed to one of my guards. Could a message be
sent to the captain? Certainly. The reply came back in about ten
minutes. It was to the effect that they had been handed to Burnett for
one of the French delegates. Had Burnett, then, given them? It was just
possible that he had not. Kneeling by the body I ransacked the dead
man’s pockets. My worst fears were realized. In the breast-pocket of his
coat lay the precious and forgotten missives! My heart seemed to stop
for the moment, and then beat with hammer strokes. I made a desperate
resolution. I must see Hartmann at all costs, and wring from him the
permit and opportunity to descend. Doubtless it was entering the
shambles of a desperate city, now being wrecked and pillaged by its own
inhabitants; it was entering the lion’s den possibly only to find a
victim before becoming one myself; but whatever risks I ran, honour
scoffed at delay, and love winged me with ardour.
“Tell the captain I must see him. Tell him the letter was never
delivered, and that I must somehow find a means of speaking to him face
to face.” The answer came that he could not possibly see me, and that I
must say through the telephone what I wanted, and that briefly. I
shouted that I must at all costs descend. He replied that his plans were
unalterable. I entreated, I clamoured, I expostulated, pleading the
friendship I had borne to his mother, and the possibility that she, too,
had not yet stirred. His words to her had necessarily been more or less
enigmatical. Let me, then, go and watch over the fate of her also. I had
moved him, for there was a long pause. After what seemed ages of waiting
came his reply. “The _Attila_ cannot descend, but it crosses Hyde Park
shortly. If the case is urgent, take my parachute. The fall will not be
of more than five or six hundred feet.”
This alternative was gruesome, but there was no help for it. I wavered
an instant and accepted. Shortly afterwards Norris appeared on deck, and
bade me follow him into the citadel. I entered it, crouching low down to
the deck with the fire of the guns darting forth above me, and down the
steep stair we went till we reached the door of the dynamite room. My
guide pushed the door open and we entered.
A solitary electric lamp dispelled the gloom of the chamber and revealed
the figures of Schwartz and two other men standing by the trap-hole, now
for the moment closed. I was struck with the caution with which their
work, judging from appearances, was done. From a cabinet in the
right-hand corner sloped a stoutly-made tube of network, well stayed by
bands and roping to the ceiling. It was evidently along this that the
dangerous bombs were guided, rolling into a bag-like compartment
immediately over the trap. I had scarcely entered when the trap was
lifted, the compartment lowered, its terrible passenger released, and
the bag sharply pulled in. To forego a glance was impossible. I leant
over the aperture and listened for the voice of the fatal messenger. It
exploded near Oxford Street below us, apparently in a house, for the
secondary rattle was tremendous, suggesting the crash of ruined walls on
the roadway. Schwartz was about to launch another when a ting of the
call-bell arrested him. He telephoned to Hartmann, and received the
order to cease dropping bombs for the present. The reason was simple
enough, they were about to utilize a new weapon, the petroleum, which up
to this time had done duty only on the hideous occasion already
mentioned.
Norris now stepped up to Schwartz and told him of my determination. The
German’s wicked eyes twinkled.
“Good. I, too, descend to-morrow, and we may meet.”
“Better luck,” I said bitterly; “I have done with the _Attila_ for
ever.”
“So, ah! you Socialists have much to learn. Well, we are teaching you
something in London.”
I managed to keep my temper, for these were not men to be played with.
But how I would have liked to have hurled the miscreant down that
trap-hole.
Norris muttered that the mob might teach me something too, and I
realized, then, that the descent was not my greatest danger.
What if the parachute were to be seen by any one? I should be torn to
pieces or worse. The possibility was an appalling one. Still the
darkness would prove a very serviceable shield. Once clear of the Park,
I could pilot myself through the streets without trouble.
“Here, the captain sent you this revolver. You may need it to defend
yourself, not that I care a cent. And now look sharp, we are coming over
Park Lane in a minute.” Norris pointed to the trap-hole, and I saw
swinging at the side a long rope-ladder.
“What, climb down that?”
“Yes, if you want to go. There’s no other take-off good enough. Come,
yes or no, we shall be spinning across the Park before you’ve done
thinking.”
“But the parachute?”
“There it is in the corner. It is a case of clinging on with your hands.
We will lower it to you, and at the word ‘Go,’ drop it. The only risk is
trees and the cursed vermin underneath. Will you go?”
There was no help for it. I clenched my teeth savagely, and backed
kneeling on to the edge of the trap-hole, grasping the bomb-tube with my
left hand to steady myself. Schwartz and another man got ready the
parachute and thrust its stem down the opening. It was lucky the
_Attila_ did not pitch, for these tactics might have proved my
death-warrant. As it was, I succeeded in working my toes into the top,
and thence into the lower rungs of the ladder. Having thus worked my way
down I looked for the parachute, and transferred my left hand from the
tube to the trap-edge. Slowly I climbed down; the oscillations of the
ladder were startling, and feeling for the rungs was a purgatory. At
last I was clear of the well, and under the bottom of the aëronef
hanging in a clear space between the huge wheels which studded it.
“Now’s your time!” yelled Norris, and I grabbed the rope-handles of the
parachute fiercely—now with my right hand, then, as the ladder
threatened to run away from under me, with my left. One look below—we
were full over the Park, five hundred feet or so from the turf.
[Illustration: HOW I LEFT THE ATTILA.]
“Let go!” I shouted, and flung my legs from the ladder on which they
were resting obliquely. For a second and a half my heart seemed to leap
into my mouth, for I fell as falls a spent rocket. Then with a welcome
tug on me, the parachute bellied out, and fear gave place to confidence,
nay, to exhilaration.
What a spectacle! Above me fled the _Attila_ like some evil bird of
night; north, west, south, east rose the crimson hues of the
smoke-wreaths; below I heard the clamours of the populace, and saw the
darker tree-tops stand out against the dark face of the Park. The wind
blowing strongly I was borne south near a patch of trees, and had reason
to fear for the moment that a nasty mishap was imminent. Happily fortune
favoured me, and gliding oilily and without shock to the ground, I made
off rapidly in the direction of Bayswater.