Latest / The H. G. Wells Library / The War in the Air Chapter 3 Parts 4 & 5

Transcript

The War in the Air Chapter 3 Parts 4 & 5 · The H. G. Wells Library

0:01
Speaker 1: Chapter three, Parts four and five of War in the Air.
0:06
Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
0:09
Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
0:14
Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. War in the Air by H. G. Wells,
0:22
Speaker 1: Chapter three, parts four and five. That first downward plunge
0:30
Speaker 1: filled Bert with a haunting sense of boundless waters below.
0:34
Speaker 1: It was a summer's night, but it seemed to him
0:36
Speaker 1: nevertheless extraordinarily long. He had a feeling of insecurity that
0:40
Speaker 1: he fancied quite irrationally. The sunrise would dispel. Also, he
0:45
Speaker 1: was hungry, he felt in the dark in the locker,
0:48
Speaker 1: put his fingers in the Roman pie and cut some sandwiches,
0:52
Speaker 1: And he also opened rather successfully a half bottle of
0:56
Speaker 1: champagne that warmed and restored him. He grew bold and
1:00
Speaker 1: grub about the matches, wrapped himself up warmly on the locker,
1:04
Speaker 1: and dozed for a time. He got up once or
1:07
Speaker 1: twice to make sure that he was still securely high
1:10
Speaker 1: above the sea. The first time. The moonlit clouds were
1:13
Speaker 1: white and dense, and the shadow of the balloon ran
1:17
Speaker 1: athwart them like a dog that followed. Afterwards, they seemed thinner.
1:21
Speaker 1: As he lay still staring up at the huge dark
1:24
Speaker 1: balloon above, he made a discovery. His, or rather mister
1:29
Speaker 1: Butteridge's westcote rustled as he breathed. It was lined with papers,
1:34
Speaker 1: but Bert could not see to get them out or
1:37
Speaker 1: examine them, much as he wished to do so. He
1:41
Speaker 1: was awakened by the crowing of cocks, the barking of dogs,
1:44
Speaker 1: and a clamor of birds. He was driving slowly at
1:48
Speaker 1: a low level over a broad land lit golden by
1:51
Speaker 1: sunrise under a clear sky. He stared out upon hedgeless,
1:56
Speaker 1: well cultivated fields intersected by roads, each lined with cable
2:01
Speaker 1: bearing red poles. He had just passed over a compact,
2:05
Speaker 1: whitewashed village with a straight church tower and steep red
2:09
Speaker 1: tiled roofs. A number of peasants, men and women in
2:13
Speaker 1: shiny blouses and lumpish footwear stood regarding him, arrested on
2:17
Speaker 1: their way to work. He was so low that the
2:20
Speaker 1: end of his rope was trailing. He stared out at
2:23
Speaker 1: these people. I wonder how your land, he thought, suppose
2:29
Speaker 1: I order land? He found himself drifting down toward a
2:33
Speaker 1: mono rail line, and hastily flung out two or three
2:36
Speaker 1: handfuls of ballast to clear it. Let me see, one
2:40
Speaker 1: might say, just uh prenaise, which I knew the French for,
2:45
Speaker 1: take hold of the rope. I suppose they are French.
2:50
Speaker 1: He surveyed the country again, mart be Holland or Luxembourg
2:55
Speaker 1: or Lorraine as far as I know. Wonder what those
2:59
Speaker 1: bigger over there? Or some sort of kiln prosperous looking country.
3:06
Speaker 1: The respectability of the country's appearance awakened answering chords in
3:10
Speaker 1: his nature. Mike myself a bit chip shaped feist, he said.
3:15
Speaker 1: He resolved to rise a little and get rid of
3:17
Speaker 1: his wig, which now felt hot on his head, and
3:20
Speaker 1: so forth he threw out a bag of ballast, and
3:22
Speaker 1: was astonished to find himself careering up through the air
3:25
Speaker 1: very rapidly. Blow said mister smallways off overdone the balis trick.
3:32
Speaker 1: Wonder when I shall get down again? Breakfast on board? Anyhow,
3:37
Speaker 1: He removed his cap and wig, for the air was warm,
3:40
Speaker 1: and an improvident impulse made him cast the latter object overboard.
3:44
Speaker 1: The statoscope responded with a vigorous swing to monte a
3:50
Speaker 1: blessed fenges up if your only look overboard, he remarked,
3:54
Speaker 1: and assailed the locker. He found, among other items, several
3:57
Speaker 1: chins of liquid cocoa containing explain directions for opening that
4:01
Speaker 1: he followed with minute care. He pierced the bottom with
4:05
Speaker 1: the key provided in the holes indicated, and foughtwith There
4:09
Speaker 1: can grew from coal to hotter and hotter, until at
4:12
Speaker 1: last he could scarcely touch it. And then he opened
4:15
Speaker 1: the can at the other end, and there was his cocoa, smoking,
4:19
Speaker 1: without the use of match or flame of any sort.
4:22
Speaker 1: It was an old invention, but new to Bert. There
4:26
Speaker 1: was also ham and marmalade and bread, so that he
4:29
Speaker 1: had a really very tolerable breakfast. Indeed, then he took
4:32
Speaker 1: off his overcoat, for the sunshine was now inclined to
4:35
Speaker 1: be hot, and that reminded him of the rustling he
4:38
Speaker 1: had heard in the night. He took off the westcoat
4:40
Speaker 1: and examined it. How bur Ridge won't like me on
4:44
Speaker 1: picking this, He hesitated, and finally proceeded to unpick it.
4:50
Speaker 1: He found the missing drawings of the lateral rotating plains
4:53
Speaker 1: on which the whole stability of the flying machine depended.
4:57
Speaker 1: An observant angel would have seen Bert sitting for for
5:00
Speaker 1: a long time after this discovery, in a state of
5:02
Speaker 1: intense meditation. Then at last he rose, with an air
5:06
Speaker 1: of inspiration, took mister Butteridge's ripped, demolished, and ransacked westcote,
5:11
Speaker 1: and hurled it from the balloon. Whence it fluttered down
5:14
Speaker 1: slowly and eddyingly, until at last it came to rest
5:17
Speaker 1: with a contented flop, upon the face of German tourists
5:21
Speaker 1: sleeping peacefully beside the Hoenveg near Wildebard. Also this sent
5:27
Speaker 1: the balloon higher and so into a position still more
5:30
Speaker 1: convenient for observation by our imaginary angel, who would next
5:34
Speaker 1: have seen mister Smallway's tear open his own jacket and wistcoat,
5:38
Speaker 1: remove his collar, open his shirt, thrust his hand into
5:41
Speaker 1: his bosom, and tear his heart out, or at least,
5:45
Speaker 1: if not his heart, some large bright scarlet object. If
5:49
Speaker 1: the observer, overcoming a thrill of celestial horror, had scrutinized
5:53
Speaker 1: the scarlet object more narrowly, one of Bert's most cherished secrets,
5:58
Speaker 1: one of his essential weakness, would have been laid bare.
6:02
Speaker 1: It was a red flannel chest protector, one of those
6:06
Speaker 1: large quasi hygienic objects that with pills and medicines take
6:10
Speaker 1: the place of beneficial relics and images among the Protestant
6:14
Speaker 1: peoples of Christendom. Always Bert wore this thing. It was
6:18
Speaker 1: his cherished delusion, based upon the advice of a shilling
6:22
Speaker 1: fortune teller at Margaret, that he was weak in the lungs.
6:27
Speaker 1: He now proceeded to unbutton his fetish, to attack it
6:30
Speaker 1: with a penknife, and to thrust the new found plans
6:34
Speaker 1: between the two layers of imitation saxony flannel of which
6:37
Speaker 1: it was made. Then, with the help of mister Butteridge's
6:40
Speaker 1: small shaving mirror and his folding canvas basin, he had
6:44
Speaker 1: readjusted his costume with the gravity of a man who
6:47
Speaker 1: has taken an irrevocable step in life, buttoned up his jacket,
6:52
Speaker 1: cast the white sheet of the desert dervish on one side,
6:56
Speaker 1: washed temperately shaved, resumed the big cap and the fur overcoat, and,
7:01
Speaker 1: much refreshed by these exercises, surveyed the country below him.
7:08
Speaker 1: It was, indeed a spectacle of incredible magnificence. If perhaps
7:12
Speaker 1: it was not so strange and magnificent as the sunlight
7:14
Speaker 1: cloud land of the previous day, it was at any
7:17
Speaker 1: rate infinitely more interesting. The air was at its utmost clearness,
7:23
Speaker 1: and except to the south and southwest, there was not
7:26
Speaker 1: a cloud in the sky. The country was hilly, with
7:29
Speaker 1: occasional fir plantations and bleak upland spaces, but also with
7:34
Speaker 1: numerous farms, and the hills were deeply intersected by the
7:37
Speaker 1: gorges of several winding rivers, interrupted at intervals by the
7:41
Speaker 1: banked up ponds and weirs of electrical generating wheels. It
7:46
Speaker 1: was dotted with bright looking steep roofed villages, and each
7:50
Speaker 1: showed a distinctive and interesting church beside its wireless telegraph steeple.
7:55
Speaker 1: Here and there were large chateau and parks, and white
7:58
Speaker 1: roads and parks lined with red and white cable posts
8:02
Speaker 1: were extremely conspicuous in the landscape. There were walled enclosures
8:07
Speaker 1: like gardens and rick yards, and great roofs of barns,
8:10
Speaker 1: and many electric dairy centers. The uplands were muddled with cattle.
8:16
Speaker 1: At places, he would see the track of one of
8:18
Speaker 1: the old railroads converted now to mono rails, dodging through
8:22
Speaker 1: tunnels and crossing embankments, and a rushing home would mark
8:25
Speaker 1: the passing of a train. Everything was extraordinarily clear as
8:29
Speaker 1: well as minute. Once or twice he saw guns and soldiers,
8:34
Speaker 1: and was reminded of the stir of military preparations he
8:37
Speaker 1: had witnessed on the Bank holiday in England. But there
8:40
Speaker 1: was nothing to tell him that these military preparations were abnormal,
8:44
Speaker 1: or to explain an occasional, faint, irregular firing of guns
8:48
Speaker 1: that drifted up to him. Wish I knew how to
8:52
Speaker 1: get down, said Bert, ten thousand feet or so above
8:55
Speaker 1: it all, and gave himself too much futile tugging at
8:59
Speaker 1: the red and white cords. Afterwards, he made a sort
9:02
Speaker 1: of inventory of the provisions. Life in the high air
9:06
Speaker 1: was giving him an appalling appetite, and it seemed to
9:08
Speaker 1: him discreet at the stage to portion out his supply
9:11
Speaker 1: into rations. So far as he could see, he might
9:14
Speaker 1: pass a week in the air. At first, all the
9:18
Speaker 1: vast panorama below had been as silent as a painted picture.
9:22
Speaker 1: But as the day wore on and the gaster fused
9:24
Speaker 1: slowly from the balloon, it sank earthward again. The tails increased,
9:29
Speaker 1: men became more visible, and he began to hear the
9:32
Speaker 1: whistle and moan of trains and cars, sounds of cattle
9:36
Speaker 1: bugles and kettle drums, and presently even men's voices. And
9:41
Speaker 1: at last his guide rope was trailing again, and he
9:44
Speaker 1: found it possible to attempt a landing. Once or twice.
9:47
Speaker 1: As the rope dragged over cables, he found his hair
9:50
Speaker 1: erect with electricity, and once he had a slight shock,
9:54
Speaker 1: and sparks snapped about the car. He took these things
9:57
Speaker 1: among the chances of the voyage. He had one idea,
10:00
Speaker 1: now very clear in his mind, and that was to
10:03
Speaker 1: drop the iron grapnel that hung from the ring from
10:07
Speaker 1: the first This attempt was unfortunate, perhaps because the place
10:10
Speaker 1: for descent was ill chosen. A balloon should come down
10:14
Speaker 1: in an empty open space, and he chose a crowd.
10:18
Speaker 1: He made his decision suddenly and without proper reflection. As
10:22
Speaker 1: he trailed, Bert saw ahead of him one of the
10:24
Speaker 1: most attractive little towns in the world, a cluster of
10:28
Speaker 1: steep gables, surmounted by a high church tower, and diversified
10:32
Speaker 1: with trees, walled, and with a fine, large gateway opening
10:36
Speaker 1: out upon a tree lined high road. All the wires
10:39
Speaker 1: and cables of the countryside converged upon it like guests
10:43
Speaker 1: to entertainment. It had a most homelike, uncomfortable quality, and
10:47
Speaker 1: it was made gayer by abundant flags. Along the road.
10:51
Speaker 1: A quantity of peasant folk in big pear wheeled carts
10:54
Speaker 1: and a foot were coming and going, besides an occasional
10:57
Speaker 1: mono rail car, and at the car jounction Beneath the
11:00
Speaker 1: trees outside the town was a busy little fair of booths.
11:04
Speaker 1: It seemed a warm, human, well rooted, and altogether delightful
11:08
Speaker 1: place to bert. He came low over the tree tops
11:11
Speaker 1: with his grapnel ready to throw and sow anchor him
11:14
Speaker 1: a curious, interested, and interesting guest, So his imagination figured
11:18
Speaker 1: it in the very middle of it all, He thought
11:22
Speaker 1: of himself performing feats with the sign language and chancelinguistics
11:26
Speaker 1: amidst a circle of admiring rustics, And then the chapter
11:31
Speaker 1: of adverse accidents began. The rope made itself unpopular long
11:37
Speaker 1: before the crowd had fully realized his advent over the trees.
11:40
Speaker 1: An elderly and apparently intoxicated peasant in a shiny black
11:44
Speaker 1: hat and carrying a large crimson umbrella caught sight of
11:48
Speaker 1: it first as it trailed past him and was seized
11:51
Speaker 1: with a discreditable ambition to kill it. He pursued it
11:55
Speaker 1: briskly with unpleasant cries. It crossed the road up blakely,
11:59
Speaker 1: splashed into a pail of milk upon a stall, and
12:02
Speaker 1: slapped its milky tail athwart a motor car load of
12:05
Speaker 1: factory girls halted outside the town gates. They screamed loudly.
12:10
Speaker 1: People looked up and saw Bert making what he meant
12:12
Speaker 1: to be genial salutations, but what they considered, in view
12:16
Speaker 1: of the feminine outcry, to be insulting gestures. Then the
12:20
Speaker 1: car hit the roof of the gatehouse smartly snapped a flagstaff,
12:23
Speaker 1: played a tune upon some telegraph wires, and sent a
12:26
Speaker 1: broken wire like a whiplash to do its share in
12:29
Speaker 1: accumulating on popularity. Bert, by clutching convulsively, jost escaped being
12:35
Speaker 1: pitched headlong. Two young soldiers and several peasants shouted things
12:40
Speaker 1: up to him and shook fists at him, and began
12:42
Speaker 1: to run in pursuit as he disappeared over the wall
12:45
Speaker 1: into the town, admiring rustics. Indeed, the balloon leaped at once,
12:52
Speaker 1: in the manner of balloons when part of their weight
12:54
Speaker 1: is released by touching down with a sort of flippancy,
12:58
Speaker 1: and in another moment Bert was over a street crowded
13:00
Speaker 1: with peasants and soldiers that opened into a busy market square.
13:05
Speaker 1: The wave of unfriendliness pursued him. Grapnel, said Burton, then
13:11
Speaker 1: with an afterthought, shouted, tats there are you? I say,
13:15
Speaker 1: I say tight, hang it. The grapnel smashed down a
13:20
Speaker 1: steeply sloping roof, followed by an avalanche of broken tiles,
13:24
Speaker 1: jumped the street amidst shrieks and cries, and smashed into
13:27
Speaker 1: a plate glass window with an immense and sickening impact.
13:31
Speaker 1: The balloon rolled nauseatingly, and the car pitched, but the
13:35
Speaker 1: grapnel had not held. It emerged at once, bearing on
13:39
Speaker 1: one fluke, with a ridiculous air of festidious selection a
13:42
Speaker 1: small child's chair, and pursued by a maddened shopman. It
13:47
Speaker 1: lifted its catch, swung about with an appearance of painful indecision,
13:51
Speaker 1: amidst a roar of wrath, and dropped it at last, neatly,
13:55
Speaker 1: and as if by inspiration, over the head of a
13:58
Speaker 1: peasant woman in charge of a sword of cabbages in
14:01
Speaker 1: the market place. Everybody now was aware of the balloon.
14:06
Speaker 1: Everybody was either trying to dodge the grapnel or catch
14:09
Speaker 1: the trail rope with a pendulum like swoop through the
14:12
Speaker 1: crowd that sent people flying right and left the grapnel
14:15
Speaker 1: came to earth again, tried for and missed. A stout
14:19
Speaker 1: gentleman in a blue suit and a straw hat smacked
14:22
Speaker 1: away a trestle from under a stall of haberdashery, made
14:25
Speaker 1: a cyclist soldier in knickerbockers leap like a chamois, and
14:29
Speaker 1: secured itself uncertainly among the hind legs of a sheep,
14:33
Speaker 1: which made convulsive, ungenerous efforts to free itself, and was
14:37
Speaker 1: dragged into a position of rest against a stone cross
14:40
Speaker 1: in the middle of the place. The balloon pulled up
14:43
Speaker 1: with a jerk. In another moment, a score of willing
14:46
Speaker 1: hands were tugging at earthward. At the same instant, Bert
14:50
Speaker 1: became aware for the first time of a fresh breeze
14:52
Speaker 1: blowing about him. For some seconds, he stood staggering in
14:56
Speaker 1: the car, which now swayed sickeningly, surveying the excit aspirated
15:00
Speaker 1: crowd below him, and trying to collect his mind. He
15:03
Speaker 1: was extraordinarily astonished at this run of misapps. Were the
15:07
Speaker 1: people really so annoyed. Everyone seemed angry with him. No
15:11
Speaker 1: one seemed interested or amused by his arrival. A disproportionate
15:16
Speaker 1: amount of the outcry had the flavor of imprecation, and
15:19
Speaker 1: indeed a strong flavor of riot. Several greatly uniformed officials
15:25
Speaker 1: in cocked hats struggled in vain to control the crowd.
15:28
Speaker 1: Fists and sticks were shaken, and when Bert saw a
15:32
Speaker 1: man on the outskirts of the crowd run to a
15:34
Speaker 1: hay cart and get a brightly pronged pitchfork, and a
15:37
Speaker 1: blue clad soldier unbuckle his belt, his rising doubt whether
15:41
Speaker 1: this little town was, after all such a good place
15:43
Speaker 1: for a landing became a certainty. He had clung to
15:48
Speaker 1: the fancy that they would make something of a hero
15:50
Speaker 1: of him. Now he knew that he was mistaken. He
15:55
Speaker 1: was perhaps ten feet above the people when he made
15:58
Speaker 1: his decision, his perhaps less ceased. He leaped up on
16:02
Speaker 1: the seat, and an imminent risk of falling headlong, released
16:06
Speaker 1: the grapnel rope from the toggle that held it, sprang
16:09
Speaker 1: on to the trail rope and disengaged that also. A
16:12
Speaker 1: hoarse shout of disgust greeted the descent of the grapnel
16:16
Speaker 1: rope and the swift leap of the balloon, and something
16:19
Speaker 1: he fancied afterwards. It was a turn up whizzed by
16:22
Speaker 1: his head. The trail rope followed its fellow. The crowd
16:26
Speaker 1: seemed to jump away from him. With an immense and
16:28
Speaker 1: horrifying rustle. The balloon brushed against a telephone pole, and
16:33
Speaker 1: for a tense instant he anticipated either an electric explosion
16:37
Speaker 1: or a bursting of the oiled silk, or both, But
16:40
Speaker 1: fortune was with him. In another second he was cowering
16:44
Speaker 1: in the bottom of the car and released from the
16:47
Speaker 1: weight of the grapnel and the two ropes, rushing up
16:50
Speaker 1: once more through the air. For a time he remained crouching,
16:53
Speaker 1: and when at last he looked out again, the little
16:55
Speaker 1: town was very small, and traveling with the rest of
16:59
Speaker 1: Lower Germany in a circular orbit round and round the car,
17:03
Speaker 1: or at least it appeared to be doing that. When
17:06
Speaker 1: he got used to it. He found this rotation of
17:08
Speaker 1: the balloon rather convenient. It saved moving about in the car.
17:13
Speaker 1: Part five, late in the afternoon of a pleasant summer
17:19
Speaker 1: day in the year nineteen blank. If one may borrow
17:23
Speaker 1: a mode of phrasing that once found favor with the
17:26
Speaker 1: readers of the late G. P. R. James, a solitary
17:30
Speaker 1: balloonist replacing the solitary horseman of the classic romances, might
17:35
Speaker 1: have been observed wending his way across Franconia in a
17:38
Speaker 1: northeasterly direction, and at a height of about eleven thousand
17:42
Speaker 1: feet above the sea, and still spindling slowly. His head
17:47
Speaker 1: was craned over the side of the car, and he
17:49
Speaker 1: surveyed the country below an expression of profound perplexity. Ever
17:54
Speaker 1: and again, his lips shaped inaudible words shootin etta chap,
18:00
Speaker 1: for example, and I'll come down rot enough soon as
18:04
Speaker 1: I find out how over the side of the basket
18:08
Speaker 1: the robe of the desert dervish was hanging an appeal
18:11
Speaker 1: for consideration, an ineffectual white flag. He was now very
18:17
Speaker 1: distinctly aware that the world below him so far from
18:20
Speaker 1: being the naive countryside of his early imaginings that day,
18:24
Speaker 1: sleepily unconscious of him, incapable of being amazed, and nearly
18:28
Speaker 1: reverential at his descent, was acutely irritated by his career,
18:33
Speaker 1: and extremely impatient with the course he was taking. But
18:37
Speaker 1: indeed it was not he who took that course, but
18:40
Speaker 1: his master's the winds of heaven. Mysterious voices spoke to
18:44
Speaker 1: him in his ear, jerking the words up to him
18:47
Speaker 1: by means of megaphones in a weird and startling manner,
18:51
Speaker 1: in a great variety of languages. Official looking persons had
18:55
Speaker 1: signaled to him by means of flag flapping and arm waving.
18:59
Speaker 1: On the whole all a guttural variant of English prevailed
19:02
Speaker 1: in the sentences that alighted upon the balloon. Chiefly he
19:06
Speaker 1: was told to gom down or you will be shot.
19:11
Speaker 1: Oh very well, said Bert. But ow then they shot
19:16
Speaker 1: a little wide of the car. Latterly he had been
19:19
Speaker 1: shot at six or seven times, and once the bullet
19:22
Speaker 1: had gone by with a sound so persuasively like the
19:25
Speaker 1: tearing of silk, that he had resigned himself to the
19:28
Speaker 1: prospect of a headlong fall. But either they were aiming
19:32
Speaker 1: near him, or they had missed, And as yet nothing
19:35
Speaker 1: was torn but the air about him and his anxious soul.
19:41
Speaker 1: He was now enjoying a respite from these attentions, but
19:43
Speaker 1: he felt it was at best an interlude, and he
19:46
Speaker 1: was doing what he could to appreciate his position. Incidentally,
19:50
Speaker 1: he was having some hot coffee and pie in an untidy,
19:54
Speaker 1: inadvertent manner, with an eye fluttering nervously over the side
19:58
Speaker 1: of the car. First he had ascribed the growing interest
20:02
Speaker 1: in his career to his ill conceived tempt land in
20:04
Speaker 1: the bright, little upland town. But now he was beginning
20:08
Speaker 1: to realize that the military, rather than the civil arm
20:13
Speaker 1: was concerned about him. He was quite involuntarily playing that weird,
20:18
Speaker 1: mysterious part, the part of an international spy. He was
20:26
Speaker 1: seeing secret things. He had in fact crossed the designs
20:29
Speaker 1: of no lesser power than the German Empire. He had
20:33
Speaker 1: blundered into the hot focus of vealtfulitik. He was drifting
20:38
Speaker 1: helplessly towards the great imperial secret, the immense aeronautic park
20:44
Speaker 1: that had been established at a headlong pace in Franconia
20:47
Speaker 1: to develop silently, swiftly and on an immense scale, the
20:52
Speaker 1: great discoveries of Hunstead and Spussel, and so to give
20:56
Speaker 1: Germany before all other nations, a fleet of airships, the
21:00
Speaker 1: air power and the empire of the world. Later, just
21:05
Speaker 1: before they shot him down altogether, Bert saw that great
21:09
Speaker 1: area passionate work, warm lit in the evening light, a
21:13
Speaker 1: great area of upland on which the airships lay like
21:16
Speaker 1: a herd of grazing monsters at their feed. It was
21:19
Speaker 1: a vast, busy space, stretching away northward as far as
21:22
Speaker 1: he could see, methodically cut up into numbered sheds, gasometers,
21:27
Speaker 1: squad encampments, storage areas, interlaced with the omnipresent mono rail lines,
21:33
Speaker 1: and altogether free from overhead wires or cables. Everywhere was
21:37
Speaker 1: the white, black and yellow of Imperial Germany. Everywhere the
21:41
Speaker 1: black eagles spread their wings. Even without these indications, the large,
21:47
Speaker 1: vigorous neatness of everything would have marked it German. Vast
21:52
Speaker 1: multitudes of men went to and fro, many in white
21:55
Speaker 1: and drab fatigue uniforms, busy about the balloons, others drilling
22:00
Speaker 1: sensible drab. Here and there a full uniform glittered. The
22:05
Speaker 1: airships chiefly engaged his attention, and he knew at once
22:08
Speaker 1: it was three of these he had seen on the
22:10
Speaker 1: previous night. Taking advantage of the cloud, weelk into maneuver. Unobserved,
22:16
Speaker 1: they were altogether fish like for the great airships with
22:21
Speaker 1: which Germany attacked New York in her last gigantic effort.
22:24
Speaker 1: For world supremacy before humanity realized that world supremacy was
22:29
Speaker 1: a dream. Where the lineal descendants of the Zeppelin airship
22:33
Speaker 1: that flew over Lake Constance in nineteen hundred and six
22:37
Speaker 1: and of the Lebody navigables that made their memorable excursions
22:41
Speaker 1: over Paris in nineteen hundred seven and nineteen hundred eight.
22:45
Speaker 1: These German airships were held together by rib like skeletons
22:49
Speaker 1: of steel and aluminium and a stout, inelastic canvas outer skin,
22:55
Speaker 1: within which was an impervious rubber gas bag cut up
22:59
Speaker 1: by transverse deceptiments into fifty to one hundred compartments. These
23:04
Speaker 1: were all absolutely gas tight and filled with hydrogen, and
23:07
Speaker 1: the entire aerostat was kept at any level by means
23:11
Speaker 1: of a long internal ballow neet of oiled and toughened
23:15
Speaker 1: silk canvas into which air could be forced and from
23:19
Speaker 1: which it could be pumped, so the airship could be
23:22
Speaker 1: made either heavier or lighter than air, and losses of
23:26
Speaker 1: weight through the consumption of fuel, the casting of bombs
23:29
Speaker 1: and so forth could be compensated by admitting air to
23:32
Speaker 1: sections of the general gas bag. Ultimately, that made a
23:37
Speaker 1: highly explosive mixture but in all these matters risks must
23:41
Speaker 1: be taken and guarded against. There was a steel axis
23:45
Speaker 1: to the whole affair, a central backbone which terminated in
23:48
Speaker 1: the engine and propeller, and the men and magazines were
23:52
Speaker 1: forward in a series of cabins under the expanded headlike forepart.
23:57
Speaker 1: The engine, which was of the extraordinarily powerful Forwartzheim type,
24:02
Speaker 1: that supreme triumph of German invention, was worked by wires
24:06
Speaker 1: from this forepart, which was indeed the only really habitable
24:09
Speaker 1: part of the ship. If anything went wrong, the engineers
24:13
Speaker 1: went aft along a rope ladder beneath the frame. The
24:17
Speaker 1: tendency of the whole affair to roll was partly corrected
24:20
Speaker 1: by a horizontal lateral fin on either side, and steering
24:25
Speaker 1: was chiefly affected by two vertical fins, which normally lay
24:29
Speaker 1: back like gill flaps, on either side of the head.
24:32
Speaker 1: It was indeed a most complete adaptation of the fish
24:35
Speaker 1: form to aerial conditions, the position of swimming, bladder, eyes
24:41
Speaker 1: and brain being however, below instead of above. A striking
24:46
Speaker 1: and unfishlike feature was the apparatus for wireless telegraphy that
24:49
Speaker 1: dangled from the forward cabin. That, to say, under the
24:53
Speaker 1: chin of the fish. These monsters were capable of ninety
24:57
Speaker 1: miles an hour in a calm, so that they could
24:59
Speaker 1: face and to make headway against nearly everything except the
25:02
Speaker 1: fiercest tornado. They varied in length from eight hundred to
25:06
Speaker 1: two thousand feet, and they had a carrying power from
25:10
Speaker 1: seventy to two hundred tons. How many Germany possessed history
25:14
Speaker 1: does not record, but Bert counted nearly eighty great bulks
25:18
Speaker 1: receding in perspective during his brief inspection. Such were the
25:23
Speaker 1: instruments on which she chiefly relied to sustain her in
25:26
Speaker 1: her repudiation of the Monroe doctrine and her bold bid
25:30
Speaker 1: for share in the Empire of the New World. But
25:33
Speaker 1: not altogether did she rely on these. She had also
25:37
Speaker 1: a one man bomb throwing Drachenflieger of unknown value among
25:42
Speaker 1: the resources. But the Drachenflieger were away in the second
25:47
Speaker 1: Great Aeronautical Park east of Hamburg, and Bert smallways saw
25:51
Speaker 1: nothing of them. In the bird's eye view he took
25:53
Speaker 1: of the Franconian establishment before they shot him down. Very neatly.
25:58
Speaker 1: The bullet tore past him and made sort of pop
26:01
Speaker 1: as it pierced his balloon a pop that was followed
26:04
Speaker 1: by a rustling sigh and a steady downward movement, and
26:09
Speaker 1: when in the confusion of the moment he dropped a
26:11
Speaker 1: bag of ballast, the Germans very politely but firmly overcame
26:15
Speaker 1: his scruples by shooting his balloon again twice. End of
26:21
Speaker 1: Chapter three, Parts four and five,