It was nearly midnight, and the battleship _Argyll_, stripped to bare
steel, was drifting with banked fires but a full head of steam, waiting
for daybreak to discover the enemy. New things were expected in this
coming action. Wireless news had told of the presence of submarines, as
yet unproved in war, and before the going down of the sun a high-power
telescope on board had brought to view two small moving spots in the
distant sky--airships; but whether they were friends or enemies had not
been determined. No hammocks were piped that night--men slept at their
stations or remained awake and talked; and aft on the superstructure
a group of officers off duty discussed the possibilities of future
warfare, and the coming place of the battleship under the menace
of the bomb-dropping dirigible balloon and the invisible submarine
with its deadly torpedo. All had taken part, some with laughter and
joking, others with the earnest conviction of serious thought, and the
discussion finally had narrowed down to a wordy combat between the
highest and the lowest of the commissioned officers, Mr. Clarkson,
the executive officer, and young Mr. Felton, temporarily the torpedo
lieutenant. Mr. Felton had become dogmatic in his assertions, which is
excusable at sea only in the young.
"But, Mr. Felton," said the executive officer, slowly and earnestly,
"have a little common sense. Can't you see that conditions must change,
that the battleship, like the steamship, has almost reached the limit
of size and development, while the airship and the submarine are in
their infancy?"
"But there must be a center, a nucleus of the fleet. How can you
preserve the line of battle without such a backbone? Where will you put
the admiral?"
"Up in the air, where he can see things?"
"And be seen, too, and shot at."
"Felton, an ordinary gas bag can travel faster than the speediest
water craft ever constructed. We cannot hit a destroyer at full speed.
How can we hit an airship above us? Gun sights are useless at such
elevations, even though guns could be pointed."
"All a matter of mathematics. Design new ones."
"And suppose a few bombs come down on deck, or down the funnels;
what'll happen to the boilers?"
"Armor the deck, and do away with funnels. We will soon have internal
combustion engines, anyhow."
"And for submarine attack? Armor the bottom, too? Felton, a battleship
will cease to be a battleship. With that weight of armor she could only
carry the guns of a cruiser without a cruiser's speed."
"But she would still hold the line of battle."
"Until she was further reduced. Then she would not be even a cruiser.
Finally she would sacrifice some of her armor--side armor, we'll say,
because unnecessary--then, with enemies only above and below, she would
lose it all, seal up and dive, or take wings and fly."
"Oh, Mr. Clarkson," said Felton, wearily, "you are a visionary and
theorist. The battleship is here, a perfected fighting machine."
"But she cannot grow much better, while the flying machine and the
submarine have just begun. Imagine the three types starting together.
Which would be chosen?"
"It would depend upon the judgment, experience, and gray matter of the
choosers. I"--young Mr. Felton threw out his chest--"would choose the
battleship."
"Because you never hit one. There goes eight bells. Turn in, Felton,
and sleep it off."
Amid the laughter--for Mr. Felton, as torpedo officer, had not yet
scored a hit in his department--of the listening officers, the group
dispersed, to stand watch, or sleep, until four hours later, when the
striking of eight bells would again bring a change on the watches. It
was Felton's turn in, and he went to his berth; but, hot and excited
over the discussion, he remained awake, tossing and rolling, and
mentally arguing with the impractical "first luff," until one bell had
struck, then two, and finally three. Then he dozed off, and was sound
asleep when the familiar stroke of the bell again rang in his ears.
"Clang-clang, clang-clang."
"Only four bells," he murmured, sinking back for another two hours of
sleep. But he had hardly lost consciousness when the gun-room orderly
tapped at his door.
"Going into action, sir," he said. "You were called, and I thought you
had wakened. All hands are at stations, sir."
Felton sprang out of his berth and dressed hurriedly. Until the enemy
was within the "cruising radius" of torpedoes his station was on the
bridge with the captain. As he ran along the gun deck he heard through
the steel walls of the big ship the faint sound of distant firing, and
when he had bounded up the forward companion steps to the main deck he
could hear the singing of shells, and see through the inky blackness
twinkling points of flame. A crash and a jar of the whole huge fabric
told him that one ship of the enemy had the range, and that _something_
had struck _somewhere_, and penetrated.
There was no time for sight-seeing. The bridge was above him, and
the quickest road to it was by way of the turret, from the top of
which he could swing himself up. He mounted the iron ladder bolted
to the turret, but slipped on the hard steel roof and, with a force
that deprived him of breath, was pressed sprawling on his face. But
a deafening roar of sound from within the turret told him that the
force came from below--from the explosion of a shell and one or more
twelve-inch charges, perhaps the whole magazine in the depths. Hardly
had his dazed faculties grasped this fact than another was borne in
upon him. Gripping tightly the hand-hold of the turret hatch, and
choked with gas fumes oozing through the sight holes in the hood, he
felt that he was whirling through the air, upward and to port, he and
the whole turret roof. As it turned in air he could see for a moment
the dim, bulky outline of the ship below; then it faded into darkness,
and he was clinging for dear life to that slowly canting disk of
armored steel, until, as it assumed a perpendicular, he was holding his
weight with one hand, very curiously, as he then thought, weighing very
little. But he partook of the motion of the whole.
Something hard and rigid brushed him on the shoulder, and in a moment
he was torn from his support to find himself clutching a smooth, round
rod of what seemed to be steel or iron. It was perpendicular, and
beyond in the darkness he made out another, and beyond another. Looking
down he saw a long, pointed platform or deck, to the edge of which the
rods led. He was clinging to the stanchion of an airship, but what kind
of an airship he could not determine.
Thankful for life and a whole skin--though bruised and shocked almost
into unconsciousness--he slid down the stanchion to the deck, and faced
a man in the darkness--a tall man who peered down at his face.
"Hello, who are you, and where'd you come from?" he asked, rather
kindly. "How'd you get aboard!"
"I hardly know myself. I hardly know I'm alive. This is an airship,
isn't it?"
"Yes."
"My name is Felton, torpedo officer of the battleship _Argyll_. There
was an explosion in the forward turret, and I was on top. I went up
with the roof."
"Was that a turret top? I wondered what they were shooting at us."
"It was. I was rifling it. Which side are you on in this mix?"
"The side of the Lord."
The man whistled shrilly, and immediately half a dozen other dark
forms materialized out of the dark. They threw themselves upon Felton,
choked, pinioned, and bore him down, and before he could speak his
protest he found himself bound hand and foot.
"Stay there," said the tall man, who seemed to be the commander, "until
we need to expend weights. We _did_ want a little more ballast."
Felton wisely accepted the situation, and remained through the waning
night where they had placed him. They had not gagged him, and he was
free to roll over and change his position when tired. He lay on what
seemed to be a grating, but on turning to look at it, he found that it
was the deck of the car, through the slits of which he could see lights
below, and the quick gleaming of distant gun fire, but nothing on the
black carpet that took form and identity.
In his immediate vicinity, however, objects were becoming faintly
visible in the first blink of the morning light that had not yet
reached the surface below. He made out the shape, size, and general
construction of the craft that carried him. It was not the conventional
elongated gas bag, with car and motor, rudder, and screw; nor was it
suspended in the air by wings or planes, unless the long, concave roof
above, toward the edge of which the stanchions led, performed some
such function. Amidships were a vertical and a horizontal steering
wheel, aft a noisily buzzing engine, and, behind it in the darkness,
presumably, were the screw and rudders that propelled and guided
the craft. Symmetrically disposed about the deck were long, steel
cylinders that doubtless contained the compressed gas or air that
worked the engine, and through and between them all a system of pipes,
valves, levers, and indicators, as complicated as the fittings of an
engine-room. The tall commander was at the wheel amidships, another man
at the engine, and the rest of the crew, seven in all, were scattered
about the deck "keeping lookout," not ahead, but down.
"There she is," said one, suddenly lifting his head. "Ahead, and to
port."
"I see her," said the captain, peering down and shifting the wheel.
"You see, young man," he said to Felton, "we had to rise so suddenly to
dodge that turret top that we lost sight of her."
"Do you mean to say," answered Felton, cautiously, for he did not yet
understand the temper of these men, "that you can dodge _anything_?"
"We can dodge or outrun a shell, or anything else big enough to see.
But it was dark, and we didn't see that turret coming. It almost hit
us."
"What is your lifting power, captain?"
"The centrifugal force of the earth--partly, inconvenient in one
respect, for we rise at a tangent. We descend by its opposite and
balancing force, gravitation, which is more direct."
"How do you tap this centrifugal force?" asked the amazed Felton. "How
do you overcome gravitation?"
"Gravitation is only one phase of magnetism. In magnetism, repulsion
equals attraction. By reversing our polarity we are repelled from the
earth at the speed of a falling body, but, of course, at a tangent."
"It's beyond me," said Felton. "Of course, that tangent would take you
westward at the speed of the sun."
"In a succession of jumps--yes."
"But how do you change your polarity?" asked Felton, becoming
interested.
"There is your ship down there, nearly beneath us." And the interest
was crushed.
Felton looked down. The light was stronger now, and he could dimly see
on the surface beneath the indefinite outlines of a battleship toward
which the airship was heading. Not a light could be seen on her. Her
fires were quiet; not a flare shone from her funnels. Though there
was fighting at a distance, this craft was not engaged in it. Slowly,
from the lofty point of view, she moved along on a course that crossed
the course of the airship, and slowly the latter turned and followed,
soon dropping squarely in her wake--if such term may be used--a full
half-mile above. The engine now accelerated its speed, increasing its
volume of noise; and this noise must have been heard on the battleship.
A sudden illumination was seen--like a flash of heat lightning--then
came the singing of a projectile, and with it the report of the gun.
"Oh, fudge!" said the captain, gently and pityingly. "Go ahead, boys."
It was now light enough for Felton to examine the faces of these men.
To his surprise they were young, almost boyish. They were not in
uniform. Their dress and faces were as commonplace as could be found
in a factory; only the tall, thin young captain showing in voice and
expression the signs of study and thought. He twirled the wheel,
manipulated levers and valves within reach, and watched, downward
through the slits, the big craft beneath.
The sun was rising in the east, and Felton could make out the details
of the ship below--his own ship, with its familiar bridge, turrets,
and superstructure, and an enormous, gaping hole forward where once
had been the twelve-inch turret. Far to the south and east were other
ships, pursued and pursuing, but which was friend and which enemy he
could not make out. Warships, like bicycles, had become standardized.
A small, round shot was dropped over, and Felton watched it descend
until it disappeared from sight. But soon a scarcely perceptible splash
was seen--a little astern and to starboard, and the captain moved the
wheel and turned a lever. Another shot, or finder, went down, and
this splashed nearer. Then they lifted a pointed shell, vaned like a
dynamite projectile, held it poised until the captain gave the word,
and dropped it. It went down true as a plummet, and went out of sight.
But its effects were soon seen in an uplifting of the quarter-deck
close to the stern, and the rising of a cloud of yellow smoke.
"Nothing left of the steering gear," shuddered Felton. "Wonder how many
were killed in that--and the other."
A six-inch gun on the superstructure was barking away, and shells still
screamed upward, but none came near the airship.
"We'll silence that gun," the commander said, taking out his watch and
slightly changing the course and speed. "Stand by."
They poised another shell, and at the word "drop" down it went. The
commander pocketed his watch, and said: "Now for the rest of her; after
turret next."
Felton heard, but was watching the descent of the shell. It went out
of sight like the others, but soon he saw the uplift of deck, the
yellow smoke of explosion, and a dismounted gun flying overboard.
"My God, captain!" he exclaimed. "Is this legitimate warfare? What
chance has she? She can't hit back. That was the only gun she had with
elevated trunnions."
"And she cost about four millions, didn't she?" answered the captain,
derisively. "Did you ever hear about the boy who was reproved for
clubbing a mule tied to a post? His excuse was that it had no darn
business to be a mule. Mine is that you've no darn business to build
battleships."
"Well, we may build airships, too," said Felton, helplessly.
He said no more, but watched, while his ship was picked to pieces.
The after turret went next, its big guns lifting and falling across
each other. It took two shells to do this, though the second may have
had aid from the magazine beneath; for the whole turret rose with the
explosion. Then the eight-inch turrets, one after the other, shattered
to shapeless lumps under that terrible dropping bombardment; then the
superstructure, with its inclosed armament of six-inch and smaller
guns, received the fire; and when the whole expanse was an uneven
tangle of riven plates, twisted rods, smashed boats, and uprooted
ventilators, the funnels came in for attention. Three open, ten-foot
tubes leading to the vitals, water-tube boilers and steam connections,
one after another belched upward a mighty white cloud, and after each
uprush of steam the dropping of bombs ceased until the steam had
thinned; for in this deadly, leisurely destruction of a battleship, no
bombs need be wasted.
There was still the gaping hole where once had been the forward turret,
and the commander seemed to be studying this, as Felton, sick at heart
and furious with impotent rage, lifted his gaze from the wreck, which,
rolling slowly from filled compartments, smoking with inward flame, and
covered with crawling dots seeking escape from the inferno beneath,
had lately been his refuge and his home--the invincible, impregnable
_Argyll_--queen among battleships.
"I say, there," called the captain to Felton. "What blew up that
forward turret? No gun fire can reach a magazine, and it wasn't I that
did it."
"How do I know? Perhaps it was something else like you," snapped Felton.
"Do you think," and the commander's face took on an anxious expression,
"that it might have been a submarine's torpedo?"
"Find out."
"That's what I'll have to do. We'll go down and see."
One of the men, a big, lumbering fellow with a dull, moon-like face,
came up to where Felton lay and kicked him.
"Don't talk like that to the boss," he said.
"D-- you!" yelled Felton. "You kick a man bound and down. Loose my
hands, if you dare. Loose my hands! I won't need my feet."
"Loose him," called the captain, unconcernedly.
"Give him his way."
The man stooped and unfastened the cord which held Felton's wrists,
then, even as he scrambled to his feet, he released his ankles.
"Now, you dog, take it," he growled, launching his fist at the man's
face. It landed squarely, and the man went down, bleeding. He arose,
but instead of resisting, or making any attempt to strike back, stood
placidly in his tracks while the angry man struck him again.
Once more he went down, to rise again and tranquilly face his
assailant. Felton hesitated, while his anger cooled a little; this kind
of fighting was new to him. But the kick in his ribs flashed into his
mind and the anger came back. "Fight! Fight!" he growled, and again
knocked the fellow down. This time he put all his strength, and the
weight of his body into the blow, with the result that the man reeled
aft past the steering gear before he fell. He sat up and turned his
swollen, bleeding face toward Felton, but did not rise nor speak.
"You've had enough, I judge," said Felton. "Any one else here who wants
to kick me?"
No one answered. They were all looking down, and even the victim joined
in the scrutiny. Not one had seemed in any way interested in the fracas.
"Come on. Who's next?" said the puzzled Felton.
"It is against our rules here to fight," said the nearest man, without
looking up. "We save our energies for the enemy."
"But it seems within your rules to kick a prisoner," answered Felton in
disgust.
"Do you think," asked the captain, raising a troubled face, "that there
are any submarine craft around?"
"How do I know?" answered Felton.
"I don't feel easy, at all," said the other, plaintively.
"How the devil," exclaimed Felton, "can a submarine hurt you?"
The captain looked down without answering, and Felton seated himself to
cool off, wondering, the while, what particular brand of human nature
was embodied in this crew, and half expecting a concerted attempt
to bind him again. But nothing of the kind happened; and when his
breathing and circulation were normal, he, too, looked down on the
spectacle below.
The airship had descended to less than a hundred yards from the sea,
and hung poised, not over the floating scrap heap that had once been a
battleship, but to starboard. One look was enough for Felton; he saw
men writhing among the wreckage, unable to crawl to the rail and end
their agony. Smoke was coming from every aperture, and here and there a
small tongue of flame shot up, and fell back into the smoke. Nauseated
with horror, he closed his eyes, changed his position, and opened
them on the placid sea on the other side--away from the _Argyll_. A
smooth, rolling swell pulsed and ebbed along the surface, and it was
slightly roughened with ripples; but this did not materially lessen the
transparency of the ocean, viewed from a height. Fish were visible,
swimming about in the depths, and Felton thought of sharks, waiting for
the final plunge of that hot and smoking wreck. Far over, a movement
on the surface caught his eye; it was a triangular arrangement of
ripples such as is made by the cutwater of a boat moving slowly. The
apex of the triangle pointed toward the _Argyll_, and it was coming
toward her. As it drew near Felton made out the cause, a short length
of pole extending about three feet out of water and moved by some
power beneath. Then a huge, bulky shape, pointed like a fish, but
foreshortened and distorted by reflection--a darker blue on the blue of
the sea--appeared to view as the source of the motive power.
"There's a submarine, for you, captain," he called grimly. "See the
periscope tube?"
"Where?" yelled the captain, excitedly. "Where is it?"
He sprang to his feet, and looked to where Felton pointed. The others
followed suit, their cries, queries and alarmed faces increasing
Felton's doubts as to their sanity.
"Oh, God help us!" cried the captain, mournfully, as he saw the tube
and the shape beneath. "Jump--jump for your lives! Jump, _you_!"
He pointed at Felton, and sprang toward him.
"Why should I jump?" asked Felton, wonderingly, and prepared for
defense. The others came at him, each shouting his loudest: "_Jump,
jump for your life!_ Overboard with you! Quick, you fool!"
Then one sprang to the rail, poised a moment and threw himself out into
space. Another followed, and another.
"Jump, will you?" yelled the captain, gesticulating earnestly. "I'm in
command. I must be last to go. Over with you. Over with you all."
They were crowding to the rail, where one after another, the rest of
the crew took the leap. And Felton, amazed, alarmed without knowing
why, and against all the dictates of cold reason and common sense,
allowed the captain to push him to the rail.
"Over you go, now," commanded the latter, encouragingly. "Don't be
afraid. I'm coming, but I must be last, you know."
This seemed to be irresistible logic to the bewildered young officer.
With no further thought about the matter, he reached the rail, and
without looking down, drew a deep breath and leaped--a victim of
suggestion.
Three hundred feet is a long jump. He turned over twice in that
terrible descent, and once, looking upward, he saw the sprawling form
of the captain, and above it the quiescent airship. But when he looked
again he did not distinguish the man, and a lessening spot in the
western sky was all that could be seen of the airship.
With consciousness nearly gone he struck the water feet first and was
almost split in two by the impact; but the cold shock brought back
his lapsing senses, and he found himself feebly swimming, in which
direction he could not tell, for it was pitch dark in the depths to
which he had sunk. With aching lungs he swam and turned, looking for
light that would indicate the surface, but saw nothing to guide him,
and in utter despair was about to give up when light appeared. It
was not a dim glow, like diffused sunlight, but a spark, a point of
yellow, that grew larger and became a disk. It was approaching and now
another appeared beside it, fainter, and crescent shaped. On the other
side appeared a third and, dazed with physical agony that reached from
lungs to brain, he recognized the dead lights of a submarine's conning
tower. He looked for the hull beneath, and saw it, a dark blur that was
growing in size.
It came swiftly at him, and just as he was reaching out, to ward
himself from the pointed nose, there was a coughing thud, and something
brushed by him in a blast of bubbles and went on. Then, with many sharp
knocks on head, ribs, and knuckles, he was sucked with the inrush of
water squarely into the open tube that had just discharged its torpedo.
He heard a clang behind him, the shutting of the forward tube door,
then a whistling sound; then he felt the pressure of air on his face
and with a groan of thanksgiving he expelled the long breath he had
taken above, and drew it into his lungs. But the pressure had nearly
burst his ear drums before the tube was emptied of water, and the inner
door was opened. With a gasping call for help, he crawled and hitched
along the tube and men reached in to him. They pulled him out into the
lighted handling room, where, too weak to stand, he fell to the floor,
breathing in deep, convulsive gasps.
A man brought a bottle, lifted his head, and poured a generous portion
of some stimulant down his throat. Felton had just strength to swallow,
and it warmed and aroused him. He sat up and, being a torpedo expert,
had little difficulty in assimilating his first impressions. He was
acquainted with submarines; there was the tube from which he had
emerged, beside it the air flasks and trimming tanks. Amidships the
vertical and horizontal steering gear, and aft the engine and motor.
In this much the craft resembled the conventional submarine that he
knew. But there was this difference--that he noted when able to turn
his head. The boat was stiffened with upright stanchions of about the
size and length of the stanchions in the airship, and placed in about
the same position along the sides. Another similarity struck him at his
first glance around; and he wondered why he had not remarked it in the
airship; the air flasks, trimming tanks, and spare torpedoes arranged
along the sides, occupied the same relative positions as did the steel
cylinders in the other, while the steering gear of both was amidships
and the motive power aft.
"What have you caught this time, Bill?" called a voice from the
wheel--a strangely familiar voice.
"Dunno," answered the man with the flask. "It's a sheep, I think, or
maybe a dog; but it looks something like a horse. Have another drink,
and tell us what you are."
Felton did not refuse a second draught. It brought him to his feet.
"I'm a man," he answered with spirit. "Are you guying me--in this
exigency? I'm near dead."
"He says he's a man, sir," called the man.
"All right. Send him aft."
Felton was pushed, rather than led, to the man amidships.
"How do you do?" he said kindly. "So, you thought you'd visit us. We
catch all our fish this way."
"My God, captain," answered Felton, "I'm not visiting! I jumped out of
an airship, and was sucked into your tube. I'm glad I'm alive."
And then--was the liquor affecting his brain?--the captain's face,
line for line, feature for feature, was the face of the captain of the
airship, whom last he had seen sprawling above him in mid-air. Had he
beaten him down, and been picked up first? It seemed impossible.
"How--what--how--" he stammered, rubbing his eyes. "How did you get
here, captain? You jumped after me."
"I jumped after you? You are wandering. I saw you all jump, through the
periscope, but I was here."
"Then it's the closest resemblance I ever saw. You're the living image
of the airship's commander, or else it's the liquor. My head feels
queer."
"No doubt. But it's not the liquor. You've had a terrible experience.
It's a wonder the jump didn't kill you, as well as affect your mind."
Felton was not satisfied with the explanation. It was a strange and
striking resemblance, nothing more; and he was about to say as much
when a man came forward from the engine with an oil can. He was the
duplicate in face and form of the man he had pommeled, but without the
contusions. Felton blinked in amazement, then looked at the others,
whom, in the agitation of his entrance, he had not closely observed.
Man for man--nine in all--they duplicated the crew of the airship.
"My God," he stuttered. "Am I mad, or drunk?" His brain reeled, and,
as it had reeled before, in the social life of a naval officer, he
ascribed it to the liquor.
"You've drugged me," he yelled insanely. "Every man here is a double of
another."
"Steady--steady, now," said the captain, stepping down and laying a
hand on Felton's shoulder. "You're not drugged. You're a little off
your balance, and the drink was too heavy. Every drunken man sees
double. Isn't that so?"
This seemed logical, and Felton stammered assent. He sat down on the
projecting bilge of a torpedo, trying to recover his mental balance.
It was hard work, but finally he adjusted himself to the captain's
point of view. It was a terrible jump--three hundred feet. He had
escaped death by a miracle. Men had gone insane under less pressure,
and he had taken two drinks of a powerful stimulant. He would be all
right, in time--after a little sleep. Thus reconciled, he took note
of his surroundings. The engine was stopped, the men forward had just
finished reloading the torpedo tube, and the captain was peering into
the periscope--the non-magnifying telescope which gives a view of the
seascape.
"Come up here," he said, "and take a look." Felton climbed to the small
platform on which the captain stood. Just before him was the eyepiece
of the periscope, and, at a sign from the captain, he peeped into it.
Pictured on the lens was the dismantled wreck of the _Argyll_, down by
the head, a helpless, sinking wreck.
"She's floating on five compartments," said the captain. "I just filled
the sixth, and I think we'll fill two at once this time. By the way,
what did you fellows butt in for? It was my fight. I hit her last
night, and blew up the forward magazine; then I lost her in the dark."
"But say," answered Felton, "which side are you on in this mix? You
blew up the turret, you say, and the airship destroyed her. But the
crew of that airship displayed mortal fear of you, and jumped overboard
at sight of you."
"Exactly. They would have gone off at a tangent if they hadn't. It's
better to die on your planet than to become a comet for all eternity."
"Like the airship. I see. But how did you do it, if I may ask?"
"I reversed his polarity, that's all. See that? Look, and listen."
The captain turned a lever, and a dynamo nearby began to revolve, while
an arc lamp suspended from above glowed, glistened, and sparkled,
as the current passed through the carbons. Soon it began a curious,
musical buzzing, and the captain shut it off.
"Merely an alternating current through an arc," he explained. "But the
electric impulses sent out by that singing arc are of a wave length and
frequency produced by no other means. They are just right to turn his
two magnetic poles into one, and--away he goes."
"I don't understand. Yes, I understand that you might reverse his
polarity, or combine it, as you say, by some wireless method. But,
which side are you on?"
"The side of the Lord."
"Look here, captain," said Felton, angrily. "That is the answer your
double gave me when I asked him the same question last night. It
means nothing. I am either a prisoner of war, or a guest entitled to
consideration. Why do you treat me like a fool?"
"Because you are a fool. You believe in the invulnerability of the
battleship. Well, there is one of the best. Look at her."
"I see. Destroyed, but not by you; by an enemy of yours. One who feared
you."
"Yes, as mediocrity fears intelligence, as the child fears the dark,
the savage the gun of the civilized soldier--humanity as a whole the
unseen, the unexpected, the invisible. The airship is potential, but
not final--she can be seen."
"And shot," said Felton, doggedly.
"Did that battleship hit your airship? You know that she could not. The
airship's limitations are contained in her visibility. She cannot be
hit by shot or shell, but she can be seen, and projected into space."
"Granted, but suppose she dropped a bomb on to your back before you saw
her?"
"She could not, except in the dark; then she would have to strike a
knife edge, and it would be an accident--one chance in millions. We are
constructed like a razor-back hog, to deflect falling bombs."
"But you cannot deflect horizontal torpedoes," said Felton, looking up
at the dome of the submarine. It looked curiously like the dome-shaped
roof of the airship. "I know well," he went on, talking as was his wont
among his fellow officers, "that if I could see your periscope tube
with a telescope, I could hit you with one of my torpedoes."
"Your torpedoes?"
"I am torpedo officer of that battleship. I was on the turret top
when you blew it up last night, and went up with it. I landed on the
airship."
"You are a member of that battleship's crew?"
"I am." Felton dropped his eyes at the menace in the captain's voice.
On the way his glance took in the curving walls of the submarine. They
had become semi-transparent, and even as he looked they vanished,
leaving a clear view of the sky and horizon with its string of fighting
ships, pursued and pursuing. He was again in the airship, and the
upright stanchions that he had first observed as anomalies in a
submarine now served their legitimate purpose of supports to the roof.
"The drink," he murmured, while his brain swam, and his soundings
disappeared in a mist. "They've drugged me."
"You belong to that battleship?" roared the captain, but Felton had
sunk to the floor, incapable of voluntary action. The captain blew a
whistle, and his crew answered. They surrounded him, with scowling
faces, and lifted him to his feet. He could stand, but some inhibitory
power prevented him from moving a muscle. Foremost among them was the
man he had trounced, and this man struck him, again and again, in the
face, and Felton essayed to strike back; but the paralysis of his
muscles prevented him. His blows fell short.
"Back to the battleship," thundered the captain. "Load him into the
tube. Expend that torpedo and make room."
Men sprang to the tube and turned levers. The captain sprang to the
periscope. "Right," he said. "I'll finish her."
How an airship could fire a torpedo was beyond Felton's benumbed
faculties at the time. He was struggling weakly, trying to strike, but
unable to, pounded on the face and body by the implacable victim of his
fists in the former fight, helplessly borne along toward the tube, now
emptied of water.
"Back to the battleship," they chorused. "In with him."
Powerless to resist he was jammed head first into the tube. He heard
the door creak into place behind him. Then he felt an impact of cold
water, and he had barely sense to forestall this by an inhalation of
air. Then, faintly as the voice of a telephone, came the voice of a man.
"The forrard door's jammed, it won't open."
"Hammer it," came the captain's voice. "Get a top-maul."
An age or two went by, while Felton lay imprisoned in the tube, holding
his breath, and immersed in water. Then, faintly as the voices, came
the sound of a heavy hammer on the walls of the tube:
"Clang-clang, clang-clang."
Felton awoke in his berth, as wet with perspiration as though still
immersed in that tube. The gun-room orderly tapped at his door.
"Eight bells, sir," he said.
"All right," he answered. "Eight bells," he murmured to himself. "I
heard the first four of them--let's see--about twelve hours ago. Twelve
hours of experience between the fourth and fifth strokes. How long does
a dream take? Darn a dream, anyhow."