THE TURN OF THE BATTLE-TIDE.
The force which the Tsar had detached to operate against the
Federation Army of the North left the headquarters at eleven o'clock,
and proceeded in four main divisions by Edmonton, Chingford,
Chigwell, and Romford. The aerostats, regulating their speed so as to
keep touch with the land force, maintained a position two miles ahead
of it at three thousand feet elevation.
Strict orders had been given to press on at the utmost speed, and to
use every means to discover the Federationists, and bring them to an
engagement with as little delay as possible; but they marched on hour
after hour into the dusk of the early winter evening, with the sounds
of battle growing fainter in their rear, without meeting with a sign
of the enemy.
As it would have been the height of imprudence to have advanced in
the dark into a hostile country occupied by an enemy of great but
unknown strength, General Pralitzin, the Commander of the Russian
force, decided to bring his men to a halt at nightfall, and therefore
took up a series of positions between Cheshunt, Epping, Chipping
Ongar, and Ingatestone. From these points squadrons of Cossacks
scoured the country in all directions, north, east, and west, in
search of the so far invisible army; and at the same time he sent
mounted messengers back to headquarters to report that no enemy had
been found, and to ask for further orders.
The aerostats slowed down their engines until their propellers just
counteracted the force of the wind and they hung motionless at a
height of a thousand feet, ranged in a semicircle about fifteen miles
long over the heads of the columns.
All this time the motions of the Russian army had been watched by the
captain of the _Ithuriel_ from an elevation of eight thousand feet,
five miles to the rear. As soon as he saw them making preparations
for a halt, and had noticed the disposition of the aerostats, he left
the conning-tower which he had occupied nearly all day, and went into
the after saloon, where he found Natas and Natasha examining a large
plan of London and its environs.
"They have come to a halt at last," he said. "And if they only remain
where they are for three hours longer, we have the whole army like
rats in a trap, war-balloons and all. They have not seen us so far,
for if they had they would certainly have sent an aerostat aloft to
reconnoitre, and, of course, I must have destroyed it. The whole
forty are arranged in a semicircle over the heads of the four main
columns in divisions of ten."
"And what do you propose to do with them now you have got them?" said
Natasha, looking up with a welcoming smile.
"Give me a cup of coffee first, for I am cold to the marrow, and then
I'll tell you," replied Arnold, seating himself at the table, on
which stood a coffee-urn with a spirit lamp beneath it, something
after the style of a Russian samovar.
Natasha filled a cup and passed it to him, and he went on--
"You remember what I said to Tremayne in the Princess's sitting-room
at Petersburg about the eagle and the crows just before the trial of
the Tsar's first war-balloon. Well, if you like to spend a couple of
hours with me in the conning-tower as soon as it is dark enough for
us to descend, I will show you what I meant then. I suppose the
original general orders stand good?" he said, turning to Natas.
"Yes," replied the Master gravely. "They must all be destroyed. This
is the day of vengeance and not of mercy. If my orders have been
obeyed, all the men belonging to the International in this force will
have managed to get to the rear by nightfall. They can be left to
take care of themselves. Mazanoff assured me that all the members in
the armies of the League fully understood what they are to do. Some
of the war-balloons have been taken possession of by our men, but we
don't know how many. As soon as you destroy the first of the fleet,
these will rise and commence operations on the army, and they will
also fly the red flag, so there will be no fear of your mistaking
them."
"Very well," said Arnold, who had been quietly sipping his coffee
while he listened to the utterance of this death sentence on more
than a quarter of a million of men. "If our fellows to the northward
only obey orders promptly, there will not be many of the Russians
left by sunrise. Now, Natasha, you had better put on your furs and
come to the conning-tower; it's about time to begin."
It did not take her many moments to wrap up, and within five minutes
she and Arnold were standing in the conning-tower watching the camp
fires of the Russian host coming nearer and nearer as the _Ithuriel_
sank down through the rapidly increasing darkness towards the long
dotted line which marked the position of the aerostats, whose great
gas-holders stood out black and distinct against the whitened earth
beneath them.
By means of electric signals to the engineers the captain of the
_Ithuriel_ was able to regulate both the speed and the elevation of
the air-ship as readily as though he had himself been in charge of
the engine-room. Giving Natasha a pair of night-glasses, and telling
her to keep a bright look-out ahead, he brought the _Ithuriel_ round
by the westward to a position about five miles west of the extremity
of the line of war-balloons, and as soon as he got on a level with it
he advanced comparatively slowly, until Natasha was able to make it
out distinctly with the night-glass.
Then he signalled to the wheel-house aft to disconnect the
after-wheel, and at the same moment he took hold of the spokes of the
forward-wheel in the conning-tower. The next signal was "Full speed
ahead," and as the _Ithuriel_ gathered way and rushed forward on her
errand of destruction he said hurriedly to Natasha--
"Now, don't speak till it's over. I want all my wits for this work,
and you'll want all your eyes."
Without speaking, Natasha glanced up at his face, and saw on it
somewhat of the same expression that she had seen at the moment when
he put the _Ariel_ at the rock-wall which barred the entrance to
Aeria. His face was pale, and his lips were set, and his eyes looked
straight out from under his frowning brows with an angry gleam in
them that boded ill for the fate of those against whom he was about
to use the irresistible engine of destruction under his command.
Twenty feet in front of them stretched out the long keen ram of the
air-ship, edged and pointed like a knife. This was the sole weapon
that he intended to use. It was impossible to train the guns at the
tremendous speed at which the _Ithuriel_ was travelling, but under
the circumstance the ram was the deadliest weapon that could have
been employed.
In four minutes from the time the _Ithuriel_ started on her eastward
course the nearest war-balloon was only fifty yards away. The
air-ship, travelling at a speed of nearly two hundred miles an hour,
leapt out of the dusk like a flash of white light. In ten seconds
more her ram had passed completely through the gas-holder without so
much as a shock being felt. The next one was only five hundred yards
away. Obedient to her rudder the _Ithuriel_ swerved, ripped her
gas-holder from end to end, and then darted upon the next one even
before a terrific explosion in their rear told that the car of the
first one had struck the earth.
So she sped along the whole line, darting hither and thither in
obedience to the guiding hand that controlled her, with such
inconceivable rapidity that before any of the unwieldy machines,
saving only those whose occupants had been prepared for the assault,
had time to get out of the way of the destroying ram, she had rent
her way through the gas-holders of twenty-eight out of the forty
balloons, and flung them to the earth to explode and spread
consternation and destruction all along the van of the army encamped
below.
From beginning to end the attack had not lasted ten minutes. When the
last of the aerostats had gone down under his terrible ram, Arnold
signalled "Stop, and ascend," to the engine-room. A second signal
turned on the searchlight in the bow, and from this a rapid series of
flashes were sent up to the sky to the northward and eastward.
[Illustration: "Her ram had passed completely through the gasholder."
_See page 334._]
The effect was as fearful as it was instantaneous. The twelve
war-balloons which had escaped by flying the red flag took up their
positions above the Russian lines, and began to drop their fire-shell
and cyanogen bombs upon the masses of men below. The air-ship,
swerving round again to the westward, with her fan-wheels aloft,
moved slowly across the wide area over which men and horses were
wildly rushing hither and thither in vain attempts to escape the rain
of death that was falling upon them from the sky.
Her searchlight, turned downwards to the earth, sought out the spots
where they were crowded most thickly together, and then the
air-ship's guns came into play also. Arnold had given orders to use
the new fire-shell exclusively, and its effects proved to be
frightful beyond description. Wherever one fell a blaze of intense
light shone for an instant upon the earth. Then this burst into a
thousand fragments, which leapt into the air and spread themselves
far and wide in all directions, burning with inextinguishable fury
for several minutes, and driving men and horses mad with agony and
terror.
No human fortitude or discipline could withstand the fearful rain of
fire, in comparison with which even the deadly hail from the
aerostats seemed insignificant. For half an hour the eight guns of
the _Ithuriel_ hurled these awful projectiles in all directions,
scattering death and hopeless confusion wherever they alighted, until
the whole field of carnage seemed ablaze with them.
At the end of this time three rockets soared up from her deck into
the dark sky, and burst into myriads of brilliant white stars, which
for a few moments shed an unearthly light upon the scene of
indescribable confusion and destruction below. But they made more
than this visible, for by their momentary light could be seen
seemingly interminable lines of grey-clad figures swiftly closing in
from all sides, chasing the Cossack scouts before them in upon the
completely disorganised Russian host.
A few minutes later a continuous roll of musketry burst out on front,
and flank, and rear, and a ceaseless hail of rifle bullets began to
plough its way through the helpless masses of the soldiers of the
Tsar. They formed as well as they could to confront these new
enemies, but the moment that the searchlight of the air-ship,
constantly sweeping the field, fell upon a company in anything like
order, a shell descended in the midst of it and broke it up again.
All night long the work of death and vengeance went on; the grey
lines ever closing in nearer and nearer upon the dwindling remnants
of the Russian army. Hour after hour the hail of bullets never
slackened. There was no random firing on the part of the Federation
soldiers. Every man had been trained to use his rifle rapidly but
deliberately, and never to fire until he had found his mark; and the
consequence was that the long nickel-tipped bullets, fired
point-blank into the dense masses of men, rent their way through half
a dozen bodies before they were spent.
At last the grey light began to break over an indescribably hideous
scene of slaughter. Scarcely ten thousand men remained of the three
hundred thousand who had started the day before in obedience to the
order of the Tsar; and these were split up into formless squads and
ragged companies fighting desperately amidst heaps of corpses for
dear life, without any pretence at order or formation.
The cannonade from the air had ceased, and the last scene in the
drama of death had come. With bayonets fixed and rifles lowered to
the charge, the long grey lines closed up, and, as the bugles rang
out the long-awaited order, they swept forward at the double, horses
and men went down like a field of standing corn under the
irresistible rush of a million bayonets, and in twenty minutes all
was over. Not a man of the whole Russian army was left alive, save
those whose knot of red ribbon at the button-hole proclaimed them
members of the International.
As soon as it was light enough for Arnold to see clearly that the
fate of the Russians was finally decided, he descended to the earth,
and, after complimenting the commander and officers of the Federation
troops on the splendid effectiveness of their force, and their
admirable discipline and coolness, he gave orders for a two hours'
rest and then a march on the Russian headquarters at Muswell Hill
with every available man. The Tsar and his Staff were to be taken
alive at all hazards; every other Russian who did not wear the
International ribbon was to be shot down without mercy.
These orders given, the _Ithuriel_ mounted into the air again, and
disappeared in the direction of London. She passed over the now
shattered and silent entrenchments of the Russians at a speed which
made it possible to remain on deck without discomfort or danger, and
at an elevation of two thousand feet. Natas was below in the saloon,
alone with his own thoughts, the thoughts of twenty years of waiting
and working and gradual approach to the hour of vengeance which was
now so near. Andrew Smith was steering in the wheel-house, Lieutenant
Marston was taking his watch below, after being on deck nearly the
whole of the previous night, and Arnold and Natasha, wrapped in their
warm furs, were pacing up and down the deck engaged in conversation
which had not altogether to do with war.
The sun had risen before the _Ithuriel_ passed over London, and
through the clear, cold air they could see with their field-glasses
signs of carnage and destruction which made Natasha's soul sicken
within her to gaze upon them, and even shook Arnold's now hardened
nerves. All the main thoroughfares leading into London from the north
and south were choked with heaps of dead bodies in Russian, French,
and Italian uniforms, in the midst of which those who still survived
were being forced forward by the pressure of those behind. Every
house that remained standing was spouting flames upon them from its
windows; and where the streets opened into squares and wider streets
there were barricades manned with British and Federation troops, and
from their summits and loopholes the quick-firing guns were raining
an incessant hail of shot and shell upon the struggling masses pent
up in the streets.
A horrible chorus of the rattle of small arms, the harsh, grinding
roar of the machine guns, the hurrahs of the defenders, and the cries
of rage and agony from the baffled and decimated assailants, rose
unceasingly to their ears as they passed over the last battlefield of
the Western nations, where the Anglo-Saxon, the Russ, and the Gaul
were locked in the death struggle.
"There is some awful work going on down there," said Arnold, as they
headed away towards the south, where, from behind the Surrey hills,
soon came the sound of some tremendous conflict. "For the present we
must leave them to fight it out. They don't seem to have had such
easy work of it to the south as we have had to the north; but I
didn't expect they would, for they have probably detached a very much
larger force of French and Italians to attack the Army of the South
than the Russian lot we had to deal with."
"Is all this frightful slaughter really necessary?" asked Natasha,
slipping her arm through his, and looking up at him with eyes which
for the first time were moistened by the tears of pity for her
enemies.
"Necessary or not," replied Arnold, "it is the Master's orders, and I
have only to obey them. This is the day of vengeance for which he has
waited so long, and you can hardly expect him to show much mercy. It
lies between him and Tremayne. For my part I will stay my hand only
when I am ordered to do so.
"Still, if any one can influence Natas to mercy, you can. Nothing can
now stop the slaughter on the north, I'm afraid, for the Russians are
caught in a hopeless trap. The Londoners are enraged beyond control,
and if the men spared them I believe the women would tear them to
pieces. But there are two or three millions of lives or so to be
saved at the south, and perhaps there is still time to do it. It
would be a task worthy of the Angel of the Revolution; why should you
not try it?"
"I will do so," said Natasha, and without another word she turned
away and walked quickly towards the entrance to the saloon.