It was the night of the fourteenth of October, in the year 1915.
Sir Herbert and Lady Lethmere, with Roseye--who looked charming in
pink--were dining _en famille_ in Cadogan Gardens. The only two guests
were Lionel Eastwell and myself.
"Terrible--is it not?" Lady Lethmere remarked to me, as I sat on her
right. "We were at the Lyric Theatre when the Zeppelins came last
night. We heard the guns firing. It was most alarming. They must have
caused damage in London somewhere. Isn't it too awful?"
"And at other places, I fear," remarked Sir Herbert, a fine outspoken,
grey-haired, rather portly man, who had crowned his career as a
Sheffield steel manufacturer by receiving a knighthood. He spoke with
the pleasant burr of the north country.
"Well, the noise of the guns was terrific," his wife went on.
"Fortunately there was no panic whatever in the theatre. The people
were splendid. The manager at once came on the stage and urged us all
to keep our seats--and most people did so. But it was most alarming--
wasn't it, Herbert?"
"Yes, dear, it really was," replied her husband, who, turning to me,
asked: "What were you doing at that time, Munro?"
"Well, Sir Herbert, to tell the truth I happened to be out at Hendon
with my friend Ashton, preparing for a flight this morning. I got hold
of a military biplane which had just been finished and had only had its
last tests that afternoon, but as I had no bombs, and not even a rifle,
I was unable to go up."
"And if you had gone?" Eastwell chimed in. "I fear, Claude, that you
would never have reached them in time. They flew far too high, and
were, I understand, moving off before our men could get up. Our Flying
Corps fellows were splendid, but the airships were at too great an
altitude. They rose very high as they approached London--according to
all reports."
"And the reports are pretty meagre," I remarked. "I only know that I
was anxious and eager to go up, but as I had not the necessary defensive
missiles it was utterly useless to make the attempt."
"Nevertheless, I believe our anti-aircraft guns drove them off very
quickly, didn't they?" Lionel asked.
"Not before they'd done quite enough damage and killed innocent old
persons and non-combatants. Then they went away, and bombed other
defenceless towns as they passed--the brutes!" said Lady Lethmere.
"And writers in to-day's papers declare that all this is really of no
military significance," remarked Sir Herbert, glancing fiercely across
the table, a stout, red-faced man, full of fiery fight.
"Military significance is an extremely wide term," I ventured to remark.
"London heard the bombs last night. To-day we are no longer outside
the war-zone. We used, in the good old Victorian days, to sing
confidently of our `tight little island.' But it is no longer tight.
It seems to me that it is very leaky--and its leakage is towards those
across the North Sea who have for so long declared themselves our
friends. Friends! I remember, and not so very long ago, standing on
the Embankment and watching the All-Highest Kaiser coming from the
Mansion House with a huge London crowd cheering him as their friend."
"Friend!" snorted Sir Herbert. "He has been far too clever for us. He
has tricked us in every department of the State. Good King Edward knew;
and Lord Roberts knew, but alas! our people were lulled to sleep by the
Kaiser's pretty speeches to his brave Brandenburgers and all the rest,
and his pious protests that his only weapon was the olive branch of
peace."
"Yet Krupp's and Ehrhardt's worked on night and day," I said. "Food,
metals, money and war-materials were being collected each month and
stored in order to prepare for the big blow for which the Emperor had
been so long scheming and plotting."
"Yes, truly the menace of the Zeppelin is most sinister," said Roseye
across the table. "How can we possibly fight it? We seem to be
powerless! Our lawyers are busy making laws and fining people for not
creeping about in the darkness at night, and asking us to save so as to
pay ex-ministers their big pensions, but what can we do?"
"Rather ask whom can we trust?" I suggested.
"But, surely, Claude, there must arise very soon some real live man who
will show us the way to win the war?" asked Roseye.
I drew a long breath. She knew our secret--the secret of that long dark
shed out at Gunnersbury which was watched over at night by the sturdy
old Theed, father of my mechanic, he being armed with a short length of
solid rubber tyre from the wheel of an old disused brougham--about the
best weapon of personal defence that could ever be adopted. A blow from
that bit of flexible rubber would lay out a man senseless, far better
than any iron bar.
"Well," said Sir Herbert, re-entering our discussion. "The Zeppelin
peril must be grappled with--but who can enter the lists? You airmen
don't seem to be able to combat it at all! Are aeroplanes too slow--or
what?"
"No, Sir Herbert," I replied. "That's not the point. There are many
weaknesses in the aeroplane, which do not exist in the big airship--the
cruiser of the air. We are only the butterflies--or perhaps hornets, as
the Cabinet Minister once termed us--but I fear we have not yet shown
much sting."
"We may, Claude!" interrupted Roseye with a gay laugh.
"Let's hope we can," I said. "But all these new by-laws are, surely,
useless. Let's hit the Hun in his home. That's my point of view. We
can do it--if only we are allowed."
"I'm quite sure of that, Claude," Roseye declared. "There are lots of
flying-men who, if given bombs to-morrow, would go up and cross to the
enemy aircraft centres in Belgium or Schleswig and drop them--even at
risk of being shot down."
"Well, Sir Herbert," I ventured, laughing, "the situation is not without
its humour. I don't know whether it has ever occurred to you that, in
order not to unduly alarm the public, we may yet have certain
regulations posted upon our hoardings that may prohibit Zeppelin
commanders from cruising over England without licences; that they must
have red rear-lights; they must put silencers upon their engines, and
must not throw orange peel, paper bags, bottle or other refuse within
the meaning of the Act into the streets in such a manner as to cause any
danger to foot-passengers or create litter such as would come beneath
the powers relegated to inspectors of nuisances of Boroughs. Such
regulations might, perhaps, make it a penal offence if Zeppelins did not
keep to the left in traffic; if bombs were dropped in places other than
those properly and purposely illuminated for the purpose, or if they did
not travel at a rate faster than the British aircraft."
"Really, Claude, that's an awfully humorous idea," remarked Sir Herbert
as all at table laughed.
"In addition, it might be suggested that the heads of all dogs, ducks,
cats, parrots, and the horns of gramophones might be encased in
cotton-wool to conceal their whereabouts, that no smoking be permitted,
and no artificial light between one hour before sunset and one hour
after sunrise."
"Exactly," I laughed. "And an inter-departmental committee of the
red-tabbed might be charged with the due execution of the regulations--
all offenders to be shot at sunrise following the day whereon any breach
of the Defence of the Zeppelin Act were committed."
"Really you're too bad!" declared Eastwell, laughing heartily as he held
his glass poised in his hand.
"Well," I protested. "Here we've had Zeppelins killing people. Surely
something must be done! Either regulate the Zeppelin traffic, or else
fight them."
"I'm all for the latter," declared Roseye.
"So am I," was my remark.
"And I also," declared Eastwell. "_But how_?--that's the question!"
Roseye exchanged glances with me, and I wondered whether he noticed
them.
Somehow I had just a faint suspicion that he did, for I detected a
curious expression upon his lips--a look such as I had never seen there
before.
He made no remark, but busied himself with the excellently-cooked snipe
before him.
Fortunately Lionel Eastwell was not aware of our secret--the secret of
that brown deal box which we were so rapidly perfecting.
Only on the previous day Roseye had been up in the air with me across
Hampstead, Highgate, and out as far as Hatfield and home to the
aerodrome, making a further test of the potent but unseen power which we
had been able to create, and which must, if further developed, be our
strong arm by which to strike a very deadly blow against enemy airships.
"Personally," declared Sir Herbert, in his bluff, matter-of-fact way, "I
think the whole idea of air-defence from below is utterly futile. A gun
can never hit with accuracy a moving object so high in the air and in
the dark. What target is there?"
"Exactly," exclaimed Eastwell. "That has always been my argument. I've
been interested in aviation for years, and I know the enormous
difficulties which face the efforts of those who man our anti-aircraft
guns. Searchlights and guns I contend are inadequate."
"They've hardly been tried, have they?" queried Lady Lethmere. "And,
moreover, I seem to recollect reading that both have done some excellent
work on the French front."
"But London is not the French front," Eastwell protested. "The
conditions are so very different."
"Then what do you suggest as a really reliable air-defence?" Sir
Herbert inquired.
"Fight them with fast aeroplanes and bombs," Eastwell said.
"But you've just told Munro that had he gone up last night from Hendon
his flight would have been quite useless, as he would never have been
able to mount sufficiently high in the time."
"Quite so. But we ought to have efficient air-patrols at night," was
his reply.
"Combined with properly illuminated landing-places," Roseye added.
"Otherwise more than half the airmen and observers must kill themselves
through landing in the dark without any knowledge of the direction of
the wind."
"That could all be arranged--as it no doubt will be in due course," I
said. "The Government are not such fools as some people seem inclined
to believe. I'm not one of those who blame the whole Government for a
few mistakes of its subordinate departments, and the incompetency of men
pitchforked, in the hurry of an unexpected war, into places for which
they are entirely unfitted. We all know of glaring cases of that sort.
No. Let's take heart, and look on the best side of things. Britain is
not vanquished yet, and the heart of the true Briton beats quicker and
is fiercer than ever in its patriotism over the base enemy outrage of
the kind that was committed upon innocent Londoners last night."
"Only yesterday I was reading a popular book called _Can Germany Win_?
written by an anonymous American," remarked Sir Herbert. "The writer
gaily informs the public that even well-directed rifle-fire can bring
the vaunted Zeppelins down, and to secure any accuracy of aim
themselves, the airships must descend to an altitude which brings them
well within the range of modern guns."
"I know!" I laughed. "The rubbish written about Zeppelins is simply
ludicrous. I've read that book, which has no doubt been read by
thousands of patriotic Britons. I remember quite well that, in it, we
are gravely informed that as far as Zeppelins were concerned the British
public may sleep comfortably in their beds. The great thing is, we are
urged, to discount as far as possible, by reason supported by
scepticism, the terrorising tales of the Zeppelin's worth and doughty
prowess which are so brilliantly `press-agented' in Germany. The writer
has further told us that talk never broke any bones, and the Germans are
doing a good deal of talk at the present moment to hide the defects in
their monster pets which have been detected as useless by the test of
War. The Zeppelins, the writer told us, are comparatively negligible
quantities. Last night's raid is the commentary."
"Yes," said Roseye, "something must really be done to prevent such
raids."
"But how?" queried Lionel Eastwell across the table in that slow refined
voice of his. "It's all very well to talk like that--but you must
_act_."
Roseye and I again exchanged glances. She knew well what was passing in
my mind.
And I remained silent.