Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / The War in the Air Chapter 7 Parts 1-3

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The War in the Air Chapter 7 Parts 1-3 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter seven, parts one, two, and three of War in
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  Speaker 1: the Air. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
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  Speaker 1: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
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  Speaker 1: please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Fred de Beredinus.
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  Speaker 1: War in the Air by H. G. Wells, Chapter seven,
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  Speaker 1: Parts one, two, and three. Chapter seven The Fotterland is
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  Speaker 1: disabled number one, and then above the flames of Manhattan
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  Speaker 1: Island came a battle, the first battle in the Air.
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  Speaker 1: The Americans had realized the price their waiting game must cost,
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  Speaker 1: and struck with all the strength they had, if happily
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  Speaker 1: they might still save New York from this mad prince
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  Speaker 1: of blood and iron, and from fire and death. They
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  Speaker 1: came down upon the Germans on the wings of a
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  Speaker 1: great gale in the twilight, amidst thunder and rain. They
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  Speaker 1: came from the yards of Washington and Philadelphia full tilt
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  Speaker 1: in two squadrons, and but for one sentinel airship hard
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  Speaker 1: By Trenton, the surprise would have been complete. The Germans,
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  Speaker 1: sick and weary with destruction and half empty of ammunition,
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  Speaker 1: were facing up into the weather. When the news of
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  Speaker 1: this onset reached them New York. They had left behind
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  Speaker 1: to the southeastward a darkened city with one hideous red
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  Speaker 1: scar of flames. All the air ships rolled and staggered.
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  Speaker 1: Bursts of hailstorm bore them down and forced them to
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  Speaker 1: fight their way up again. The air had become bitterly cold.
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  Speaker 1: The Prince was on the point of issuing orders to
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  Speaker 1: drop earthward and trail copper lightning chains when the news
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  Speaker 1: of the aeroplane attack came to him. He faced his
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  Speaker 1: fleet in line abreast south, had the drakenflee germanned and
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  Speaker 1: held ready to cast loose, and ordered a general ascent
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  Speaker 1: into the freezing clearness above the wet and darkness. The
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  Speaker 1: news of what was imminent came slowly to Bert's perceptions.
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  Speaker 1: He was standing in the mess room at the time,
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  Speaker 1: and the evening rations were being served out. He had
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  Speaker 1: resumed Butteridge's coat and gloves, and in addition he had
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  Speaker 1: wrapped his blanket about him. He was dipping his bread
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  Speaker 1: into his soup and was biting off big mouthfuls. His
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  Speaker 1: legs were wide apart, and he linked against the partition
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  Speaker 1: in order to steady himself. Amidst the pitching and oscillation
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  Speaker 1: of the airship. The men about him, looked tired and depressed.
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  Speaker 1: A few talked, but most were sullen and thoughtful, and
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  Speaker 1: one or two were air sick. They all seemed to
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  Speaker 1: share the peculiarly outcast feeling that had followed the murders
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  Speaker 1: of the evening, a sense of a land beneath them,
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  Speaker 1: and an outraged humanity grown more hostile than the sea.
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  Speaker 1: Then the news hit them. A red faced, sturdy man,
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  Speaker 1: a man with light eyelashes and a scar, appeared in
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  Speaker 1: the doorway and shouted something in German that manifestly startled
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  Speaker 1: every one. Bert felt the shock of the altered tone,
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  Speaker 1: though he could not understand a word that was said.
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  Speaker 1: The announcement was followed by a pause, and then a
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  Speaker 1: great outcry of questions and suggestions. Even the air sick
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  Speaker 1: men flushed and spoke. For some minutes, the mess room
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  Speaker 1: was bedlam, and then, as if it were a confirmation
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  Speaker 1: of the news, came the shrill ringing of the bells
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  Speaker 1: that called the men to their posts. Bert, with pantomime suddenness,
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  Speaker 1: found himself alone. What's up, he thought, though he partly guessed.
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  Speaker 1: He stayed only to gulp down the remainder of his soup,
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  Speaker 1: and then ran along the swaying passage and clutching tightly
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  Speaker 1: down the ladder to the little gallery. The weather hit
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  Speaker 1: him like cold water squirted from a hose. The airship
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  Speaker 1: engaged in some new feet of atmosphere jiu jitsu. He
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  Speaker 1: drew his blanket closer about him, clutching with one straining hand.
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  Speaker 1: He found himself tossing in a wet twilight, with nothing
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  Speaker 1: to be seen but mist pouring past him. Above him,
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  Speaker 1: the airship was warm with lights and busy with the
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  Speaker 1: movements of men going to their quarters. Then abruptly the
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  Speaker 1: lights went out, and the fataland with bounds and twists
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  Speaker 1: and strange writhings, was fighting her way up the air.
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  Speaker 1: He had a glimpse as the fataland rolled over of
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  Speaker 1: some large buildings, burning close below them, a quivering a
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  Speaker 1: canvas of flame. And then he saw indistinctly through the
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  Speaker 1: driving weather another airship, wallowing along like a porpoise, and
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  Speaker 1: also working up. Presently, the clouds swallowed her again for
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  Speaker 1: a time, and then she came back to sight as
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  Speaker 1: a dark and wail like monster amidst streaming weather. The
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  Speaker 1: air was full of flappings and pipings avoid gusty shouts
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  Speaker 1: and noises. It buffeted him and confused him. Ever and
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  Speaker 1: again his attention became rigid, a blind and definite balancing
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  Speaker 1: and clutching. Wow, Something fell past him, out of the
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  Speaker 1: vast darknesses above, and vanished into the tumults below, going
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  Speaker 1: obliquely downward. It was a German drakenfleecker. The thing was
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  Speaker 1: going so fast he had but an instant apprehension of
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  Speaker 1: the dark figure of the aeronaut crouched together clutching at
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  Speaker 1: his wheel. It might be a maneuver, but it looked
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  Speaker 1: like a catastrophe. Gaw, said Bert. Poop poop poop went
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  Speaker 1: a gun somewhere in the murk ahead, And suddenly, and
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  Speaker 1: quite horribly, the fottland lurched, and Bert an ascent in
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  Speaker 1: thela cling to the rail for dear life. Bang came
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  Speaker 1: a vast impact out of the zenith, followed by another
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  Speaker 1: huge roll, and all about him the tumbled clouds flashed
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  Speaker 1: red and lurid in response to flashes unseen revealing immense gulfs.
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  Speaker 1: The rail went right overhead, and he was hanging loose
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  Speaker 1: in the air, holding on to it. For a time.
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  Speaker 1: Bert's whole mind and being was given to clutching. I'm
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  Speaker 1: going into the cabin, he said. As the airship righted
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  Speaker 1: again and brought back the gallery floor to his feet.
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  Speaker 1: He began to make his way cautiously towards the ladder.
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  Speaker 1: Oi wow, he cried, as the whole gallery reared itself
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  Speaker 1: up forward and then plunged down like a desperate horse. Crack, bang, bang, bang,
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  Speaker 1: and then hard upon this little rattle of shots and
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  Speaker 1: bombs came all about him, enveloping him, engulfing him immense
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  Speaker 1: and overwhelming, a quivering white blaze of lightning, and a
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  Speaker 1: thunderclap that was like the bursting of a world. Just
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  Speaker 1: for the instant before that explosion, the universe seemed to
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  Speaker 1: be standing still in a shadowless glare. It was then
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  Speaker 1: he saw the American aeroplane. He saw it in the
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  Speaker 1: light of the flash, as a thing altogether motionless. Even
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  Speaker 1: its screw appeared still, and its men were rigid dolls.
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  Speaker 1: For it was so near he could see the men
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  Speaker 1: upon it quite distinctly. Its stern was tilting down, and
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  Speaker 1: the whole machine was heeling over. It was of the
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  Speaker 1: Colt Coburn Langley, patterned with doubled up tilted wings, and
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  Speaker 1: the screw ahead, and the men were in a boat
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  Speaker 1: like body netted over from this very light long body,
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  Speaker 1: magazine guns projected on either side. One thing that was
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  Speaker 1: strikingly odd and wonderful in that moment of revelation was
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  Speaker 1: that the left upper wing was burning downward with a reddish,
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  Speaker 1: smoky flame. But this was not the most wonderful thing
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  Speaker 1: about this apparition. The most wonderful thing was that it
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  Speaker 1: and a German airship five hundred yards below were threaded,
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  Speaker 1: as it were on a lightning flash which turned out
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  Speaker 1: of its path as if to take them, and that
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  Speaker 1: out from the corners, and projecting points of its huge
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  Speaker 1: wings everywhere, little branching thorn trees of lightning were streaming
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  Speaker 1: like a picture. Bert saw these things a picture, a
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  Speaker 1: little blurred by a thin veil of wind torn mist.
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  Speaker 1: The crash of the thunderclap followed the flash and seemed
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  Speaker 1: a part of it, so that it is hard to
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  Speaker 1: say whether Bert was the rather deafened or blinded in
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  Speaker 1: that instant. And then darkness, utter darkness, and a heavy report,
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  Speaker 1: and a thin, small sound of voices that went wailing
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  Speaker 1: downward into the abyss below. Number two. There followed upon
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  Speaker 1: these things a long, deep swaying of the airship, and
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  Speaker 1: then Bert began a struggle to get back to his cabin.
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  Speaker 1: He was drenched and cold, and terrified beyond measure, and
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  Speaker 1: now more than a little air sick. It seemed to
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  Speaker 1: him that the strength had gone out of his knees
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  Speaker 1: and hands, and that his feet had become icily slippery
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  Speaker 1: over the metal they trod upon. But that was because
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  Speaker 1: a thin film of ice had frozen upon the gallery.
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  Speaker 1: He never knew how long his ascent of the ladder
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  Speaker 1: back into the airship took him, but in his dreams afterwards,
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  Speaker 1: when he recalled it, that experience seemed to last for hours.
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  Speaker 1: Below above around him were gulfs, monstrous gulfs of howling wind,
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  Speaker 1: and eddies of dark, whirling snowflakes, and he was protected
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  Speaker 1: from it all by a little metal grating and a rail,
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  Speaker 1: a grating and rail that seemed madly infuriated with him,
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  Speaker 1: passionately eager to wrench him off and throw him into
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  Speaker 1: the tumult of space. Once he had a fancy that
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  Speaker 1: a bullet tore by his ear, and that the clouds
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  Speaker 1: and snowflakes were lit by a flash, But he never
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  Speaker 1: even turned his head to see what new assailant whirled
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  Speaker 1: past them in the void. He wanted to get into
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  Speaker 1: the passage. He wanted to get into the passage. He
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  Speaker 1: wanted to get into the passage. Would the arm by
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  Speaker 1: which he was clinging hold out, or would it give
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  Speaker 1: way and snap? A handful of hail smacked him in
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  Speaker 1: the face, so that for a time he was breathless
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  Speaker 1: and nearly insensible. Hold tight bert he renewed his efforts.
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  Speaker 1: He found himself with an enormous sense of relief and
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  Speaker 1: warmth in the passage. The passage was behaving like a
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  Speaker 1: dice box. Its disposition was evidently to rattle him about
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  Speaker 1: and then throw him out again. He hung on with
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  Speaker 1: the convulsive clutch of instinct until the passage lurched down ahead.
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  Speaker 1: Then he would make a short run cabinward and clutch
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  Speaker 1: again as the fore end rose. Behold, he was in
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  Speaker 1: the cabin. He snapped to the door, and for a
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  Speaker 1: time he was not a human being. He was a
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  Speaker 1: case of air sickness. He wanted to get somewhere that
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  Speaker 1: would fix him, that he needn't clutch. He opened the
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  Speaker 1: locker and got inside among the loose articles and sprawled
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  Speaker 1: there helplessly, with his head sometimes bumping one side and
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  Speaker 1: sometimes the other. The lid shut upon him with a click.
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  Speaker 1: He did not care then what was happening anymore. He
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  Speaker 1: did not care who fought who, or what bullets were
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  Speaker 1: fired or explosions occurred. He did not care if presently
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  Speaker 1: he was shut or smashed to pieces. He was full
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  Speaker 1: of feeble inarticulates, age and despair. Foolery, he said his
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  Speaker 1: one exhaustive comment on human enterprise, adventure, war, and the
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  Speaker 1: chapter of accidents that had entangled him. Foolery. Ugh, He
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  Speaker 1: included the order of the universe in that comprehensive condemnation.
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  Speaker 1: He wished he was dead. He saw nothing of the
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  Speaker 1: stars as presently the Faterland cleared the rush and confusion
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  Speaker 1: of the lower weather, nor of the duel she fought
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  Speaker 1: with two circling aeroplanes, how they shot her rearmost chambers through,
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  Speaker 1: and how she fought them off with explosive bullets and
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  Speaker 1: turned to run. As she did so, the rush and
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  Speaker 1: swoop of these wonderful night birds was all lost upon him.
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  Speaker 1: Their heroic dash and self sacrifice, the Faterland was rammed,
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  Speaker 1: and for some moments she hung on the verge of
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  Speaker 1: destruction and sinking swiftly, with the American aeroplane entangled with
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  Speaker 1: her smashed propeller, and the Americans trying to scramble aboard,
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  Speaker 1: it signified nothing to Bert. To him, it conveyed itself
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  Speaker 1: simply as vehement, swaying joolery. When the American airship dropped
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  Speaker 1: off at last, with most of its crew shot or fallen,
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  Speaker 1: Bert in his locker appreciated nothing but that the Faterland
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  Speaker 1: had taken a hideous upward leap. But then came infinite relief,
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  Speaker 1: incredibly blissful relief. The rolling, the pitching, the struggle ceased,
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  Speaker 1: ceased instantly and absolutely. The Faterland was no longer fighting
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  Speaker 1: the gale. Her smashed and exploded engines throbbed no more.
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  Speaker 1: She was disabled and driving before the wind as smoothly
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  Speaker 1: as a balloon. A huge wind spread tattered cloud of
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  Speaker 1: aerial wreckage. To Bert, it was no more than the
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  Speaker 1: end of a series of disagreeable sensations. He was not
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  Speaker 1: curious to know what had happened to the airship, nor
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  Speaker 1: what had happened to the battle. For a long time
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  Speaker 1: he lay waiting apprehensively for the pitching and tossing, and
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  Speaker 1: his qualms to return, and so lying boxed up in
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  Speaker 1: the locker, he presently fell asleep. Number three. He awoke tranquil,
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  Speaker 1: but very stuffy, and at the same time very cold,
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  Speaker 1: and quite unable to recollect where he could be. His
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  Speaker 1: head ached and his breath was suffocated. He had been dreaming,
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  Speaker 1: confusedly of Edna and desert dervishes, and of riding bicycles
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  Speaker 1: in an extremely perilous manner through the upper air, amidst
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  Speaker 1: a pyrotechnical display of crackers and Bengal lights, through the
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  Speaker 1: great annoyance of a sort of composite person made up
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  Speaker 1: of the Prince and mister Butteridge. Then, for some reason
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  Speaker 1: Edna and he had begun to cry pitifully for each other,
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  Speaker 1: and he woke up with wet eyelashes into this ill
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  Speaker 1: ventilated darkness of the locker. He would never see Edna
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  Speaker 1: any more, never see Edna any more. He thought he
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  Speaker 1: must be back in the bed room behind the cycle
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  Speaker 1: shop at the bottom of bun Hill, And he was
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  Speaker 1: sure the vision he had had of the destruction of
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  Speaker 1: a magnificent city, a city quite incredibly great and splendid
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  Speaker 1: by means of bombs was no more than a particularly
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  Speaker 1: vivid dream rub He called, anxious to tell him. The
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  Speaker 1: answering silence and the dull resonance of the locker to
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: his voice, supplementing the stifling quality of the air, set
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  Speaker 1: going a new train of ideas. He lifted up his
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  Speaker 1: hands and feet and met an inflexible resistance. He was
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  Speaker 1: in a coffin. He thought he had been buried alive.
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  Speaker 1: He gave way at once to wild panic. Help. He
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  Speaker 1: screamed help, and drummed with his feet and kicked and struggled,
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  Speaker 1: Let me out, Let me out. For some seconds he
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  Speaker 1: struggled with this intolerable horror, and then the side of
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  Speaker 1: his imagined coffin gave way, and he was flying out
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  Speaker 1: into daylight. Then he was rolling about on what seemed
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  Speaker 1: to be a padded floor with Kurt, and being punched
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  Speaker 1: and sworn at lustily. He sat up. His head bandage
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  Speaker 1: had become loose and got over one eye, and he
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  Speaker 1: whipped the whole thing off. Kurt was also sitting up
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  Speaker 1: a yard away from him, pink as ever, wrapped in
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  Speaker 1: blankets and with an aluminum diver's helmet over his knee,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: staring at him. With a severe expression and rubbing his downy,
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  Speaker 1: unshaven chin. They were both on a slanting floor of
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  Speaker 1: crimson padding, and above them was an opening like a long,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: low cellar flap that Bert, by an effort, perceived to
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  Speaker 1: be the cabin door in a half inverted condition. The
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  Speaker 1: whole cabin had, in fact turned on its side. What
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  Speaker 1: the deuce do you mean by it, small Ways, said Kurt,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: jumping out of that locker. When I was certain you
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  Speaker 1: had gone overboard with the rest of them, where have
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  Speaker 1: you been? What's up? Asked Bert? This end of the
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: airship is up, most other things are down. Was there
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  Speaker 1: a battle there was? Who won? I haven't seen the paper,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: small Ways. We left before the finish. We got disabled
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  Speaker 1: and unmanageable, and our colleagues at consorts, I mean, were
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: too busy, most of them, to trouble about us. And
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: the wind blew us. Heaven knows where the wind is
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: blowing us. It blew us right out of action at
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  Speaker 1: the rate of eighty miles an hour or so go.
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  Speaker 1: What a wind? That was? What a fight? And here
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  Speaker 1: we are where in the air, small Ways, in the air.
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  Speaker 1: When we get down on the earth again, we shan't
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: know what to do with our legs. But what's below us? Canada,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: to the best of my knowledge, and a jolly bleak
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: empty inhospitable country, it looks. But why ain't we right
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: ways up? Kurt made no answer for a space. Last
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: I remember was seeing a sort of flying machine and
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: a lightning flash, said Bert Gore. That was horrible, guns
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: going off, things exploding clouds, and ale pitching and tossing.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I got so scared and desperate and sick. You don't
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: know how the fight came off, Not a bit of it.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: I was up with my squad in those divers dresses
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: inside the gas chambers with sheets of silk for calking.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: We couldn't see a thing outside except the lightning flashes.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: I never saw one of those American aeroplanes. Just saw
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the shots flicker through the chambers and sent off men
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: for the tears. We caught fire a bit, not much,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: you know, we were too wet, so the fires spluttered
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  Speaker 1: out before we banged. And then one of their infernal
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: things dropped out of the air on us and rammed.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Didn't you feel it? I felt everything, said Bert. I
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: didn't notice any particular smash. They must have been pretty desperate.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: If they meant it, they slashed down on us like
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: a knife, simply ripped the after gas chambers like gutting herrings,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: crumpled up the engines and screw Most of the engines
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: dropped off as they fell off us, or we'd have grounded,
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  Speaker 1: But the rest is sort of dangling. We just turned
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: up our nose to the heavens and stayed there. Eleven
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: men rolled off us from various points, and poor old
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Winterfeld fell through the door of the Prince's cabin into
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  Speaker 1: the chart room and broke his ankle. Also, we got
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  Speaker 1: our electric gear shot or carried away. No one knows
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  Speaker 1: how that's the position. Small ways, we're driving through the
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: air like a common aerostat at the mercy of the elements,
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  Speaker 1: almost due north, probably to the North Pole. We don't
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  Speaker 1: know what aeroplanes the Americans have or anything at all
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  Speaker 1: about it. Very likely we have finished them up. One
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: fouled us, one was struck by lightning. Some of the
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: men saw a third upset, apparently just for fun. They
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: were going cheap anyhow. Also, we've lost most of our drakenfleeger.
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  Speaker 1: They just skated off into the night. No stability in him.
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  Speaker 1: That's all. We don't know if we've won or lost.
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  Speaker 1: We don't know if we're at war with the British
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  Speaker 1: Empire yet or at peace. Consequently, we daren't get down.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: We don't know what we are up to or what
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  Speaker 1: we are going to do. Our Napoleon is alone forward,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: and I suppose he's rearranging his plans. Whether New York
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: was our Moscow or not remains to be seen. We've
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: had a high old time and murdered no end of
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: people war, noble war. I'm sick of it this morning.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: I like sitting in rooms right way up and not
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: on slippery partitions. I'm a civilized man. I keep thinking
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: of old Albrecht and the Barbarossa. I feel I want
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: to wash and kind words and a quiet home. When
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: I look at you, I know I want to wash Gott.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: He stifled a vehement yawn. What a cockney tadpole of
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: a Ruffian you look? Can we get any grub, asked Bert.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Heaven knows, said Kurt. He meditated upon Bert for a time.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: So far as I can judge, small ways, he said,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: the Prince will probably want to throw you overboard next
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: time he thinks of you. He certainly will if he
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: sees you. After all, you know, you came as ballast,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: and we shall have to light and ship extensively pretty soon.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Unless I'm mistaken, the Prince will wake up presently and
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: start doing things with tremendous vigor. I've taken a fancy
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: to you. It's the English strain in me. You're a
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: rum little chap. I shan't like seeing you whiz down
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: the air. You'd better make yourself useful small ways. I
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: think I shall requisition you for my squad. You'll have
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: to work, you know, and be infernally intelligent in all that,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: and you'll have to hang about upside down a bit. Still,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: it's the best chance you have. We shan't carry passengers
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: much farther this trip. I fancy ballast goes overboard if
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: we don't want the ground precious soon and be taken
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: prisons of war. The Prince won't do that anyhow, He'll
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: be gained to the last end of Chapter seven, Parts one, two,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: and three,