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The War in the Air Chapter 8 Parts 3-5 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Chapter eight, Parts three, four, and five 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. Recorded by William tom Coe.
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Speaker 1: War in the Air by H. G. Wells. Chapter eight,
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Speaker 1: Parts three, four, and five. Part three one sets down
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Speaker 1: these particulars and compares the points of the American and
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Speaker 1: German pattern of aeroplane and navigable. But none of these
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Speaker 1: facts were clearly known to any of those who fought
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Speaker 1: in this monstrously confused battle above the American Great Lakes.
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Speaker 1: Each side went into action against it knew not what,
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Speaker 1: under novel conditions, and with apparatus that, even without hostile attacks,
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Speaker 1: was capable of producing the most disconcerting surprises. Schemes of action,
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Speaker 1: attempts at collective maneuvering necessarily went to pieces directly the
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Speaker 1: fight began, just as they did in almost all the
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Speaker 1: early ironclad battles of the previous century. Each captain then
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Speaker 1: had to fall back upon individual action and his own devices.
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Speaker 1: One would see triumph in what another read as a
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Speaker 1: cue for flight and despair. It is as true of
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Speaker 1: the Battle of Niagara as of the Battle of Lisa,
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Speaker 1: that it was not a battle but a bundle of
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Speaker 1: battle letts to such a spectator as Bert. It presented
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Speaker 1: itself as a series of incidents, some immense, some trivial,
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Speaker 1: but collectively incoherent, and never had its sense of any plan, issue,
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Speaker 1: joined of any point, struggled for and won or lost.
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Speaker 1: He saw tremendous things happen, and in the end his
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Speaker 1: world darkened to disaster and ruin. He saw the battle
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Speaker 1: from the ground, from Prospect Park and from Goat Island,
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Speaker 1: whither he fled. But the manner in which he came
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Speaker 1: to be on the ground needs explaining. The Prince had
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Speaker 1: resumed command of his fleet through wireless telegraphy long before
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Speaker 1: the zeppelin, had located his encampment in Labrador. By his direction,
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Speaker 1: the German air fleet, whose advanced scouts had been in
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Speaker 1: contact with the Japanese over the Rocky Mountains, had concentrated
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Speaker 1: upon Niagara and awaited his arrival. He had rejoined his
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Speaker 1: command early in the morning of the twelfth, and Bert
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Speaker 1: had his first prospect of the gorge of Niagara while
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Speaker 1: he was doing net drill outside the Middle gas chamber.
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Speaker 1: At sunrise, the zeppelin was flying very high at the time,
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Speaker 1: and far below he saw the water in the gorge
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Speaker 1: marbled with froth, and then away to the west the
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Speaker 1: great crescent of the Canadian Fall, shining, flickering and foaming
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Speaker 1: in the level sunlight and sending up a deep, incessant
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Speaker 1: thudding rumble to the sky. The air fleet was keeping
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Speaker 1: station in an enormous crescent, with its horns pointing southwestward
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Speaker 1: along the ray of shining monsters with tails rotating slowly
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Speaker 1: and German ensigns now trailing from their bellies aft of
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Speaker 1: their Marconi pendants. Niagara City was still largely standing then,
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Speaker 1: albeit its streets were empty of all life. Its bridges
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Speaker 1: were intact, its hotels and restaurants still flying flags and
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Speaker 1: inviting sky signs, its power stations running. But about it,
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Speaker 1: the country on both sides of the Gorge might have
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Speaker 1: been swept by a colossal broom. Everything that could possibly
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Speaker 1: give cover to an attack upon the German position at
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Speaker 1: Niagara had been leveled as ruthlessly as machinery and explosives
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Speaker 1: could contrive. Houses blown up and burnt woods, burnt fences
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Speaker 1: and crops destroyed. The mono rails had been torn up,
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Speaker 1: and the roads in particular cleared of all possibility of
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Speaker 1: concealment or shelter. Seen from above, the effect of this
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Speaker 1: wreckage was grotesque. Young woods had been destroyed wholesale by
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Speaker 1: dragging wires, and the spoiled saplings, smashed or uprooted, lay
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Speaker 1: in swathes like corn. After the sickle houses had an
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Speaker 1: appearance of being flattened down by the pressure of a
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Speaker 1: gigantic finger. Much burning was still going on, and large
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Speaker 1: areas had been reduced to patches of smoldering and sometimes
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Speaker 1: still glowing blackness. Here and there lay the debris of
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Speaker 1: belated fugitives, carts, and dead bodies of horses and men,
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Speaker 1: and where houses had had water supplies, there were pools
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Speaker 1: of water and running springs from the ruptured pipes. In
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Speaker 1: unscorched fields, horses and cattle still fed peacefully. Beyond this
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Speaker 1: desolated area. The countryside was still standing, but almost all
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Speaker 1: the people had fled. Buffalo was on fire to an
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Speaker 1: enormous extent, and there were no signs of any efforts
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Speaker 1: to grapple with the flames. Niagara City itself was being
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Speaker 1: rapidly converted to the needs of a military des a
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Speaker 1: large number of skilled engineers had already been brought from
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Speaker 1: the fleet and were busily at work adapting the exterior
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Speaker 1: industrial apparatus of the place to the purposes of an
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Speaker 1: aeronautic park. They had made a gas recharging station at
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Speaker 1: the corner of the American Fall above the funicular railway,
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Speaker 1: and they were opening up a much larger area to
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Speaker 1: the south for the same purpose. Over the powerhouses and
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Speaker 1: hotels and such like prominent or important points, the German
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Speaker 1: flag was flying. The zeppelin circled slowly over this scene
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Speaker 1: twice while the Prince surveyed it from the swinging gallery.
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Speaker 1: It then rose towards the center of the crescent and
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Speaker 1: transferred the Prince and his suite Kurt included, to the Hohenzolen,
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Speaker 1: which had been chosen as a flagship during the impending battle.
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Speaker 1: They were swung up on a small cable from the
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Speaker 1: forward gallery, and the men of the zeppelin manned the
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Speaker 1: outer netting as a prince and his staff left them.
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Speaker 1: The zeppelin then came about, circled down and grounded in
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Speaker 1: Prospect Park in order to land the wounded and take
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Speaker 1: aboard explosives. For she had come to Labrador with her
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Speaker 1: magazines empty it, being uncertain what weight she might need
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Speaker 1: to carry. She also replenished the hydrogen in one of
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Speaker 1: her forward chambers which had leaked. Bert was detailed as
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Speaker 1: a bearer and helped carry the wounded one by one
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Speaker 1: into the nearest of the large hotels that faced the
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Speaker 1: Canadian shore. The hotel was quite empty, except that there
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Speaker 1: were two trained American nurses and a Negro porter, and
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Speaker 1: three or four Germans awaiting them. Bert went with the
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Speaker 1: zeppelin's doctor into the main street of the place, and
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Speaker 1: they broke into a drug shop and obtained various things
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Speaker 1: of which they stood in need. As they returned, they
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Speaker 1: found an officer and two men making a rough inventory
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Speaker 1: of the available material in the various stores. Except for them.
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Speaker 1: The wide main street of the town was quite deserted.
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Speaker 1: The people had given three hours to clear out, and everybody,
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Speaker 1: it seemed, had done so. At one corner, a dead
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Speaker 1: man lay against the wall, shot two or three dogs
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Speaker 1: were visible up the empty vista, but towards its river,
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Speaker 1: and the passage of a string of mono rail cars
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Speaker 1: broke the stillness and the silence. They were loaded with
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Speaker 1: hose and were passing to the train full of workers
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Speaker 1: who were converting Prospect Park into an airship dock. Bert
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Speaker 1: pushed a case of medicine balanced on a bicycle taken
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Speaker 1: from an adjacent shop to the hotel, and then he
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Speaker 1: was sent to load bombs into the Zeppelin magazine, a
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Speaker 1: duty that called for elaborate care. From this job, he
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Speaker 1: was presently called off by the captain of the Zeppelin,
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Speaker 1: who sent him with a note to the officer in
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Speaker 1: charge of the Anglo American Power Company for the field
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Speaker 1: telephone had still to be adjusted. Bert received his instructions
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Speaker 1: in German, whose meaning he guessed and saluted, and took
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Speaker 1: the note, not caring to betray his ignorance of the language.
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Speaker 1: He started off with the bright air of knowing his way,
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Speaker 1: and turned a corner or so, and was only beginning
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Speaker 1: to suspect that he did not know where he was
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Speaker 1: going when his attention was recalled to the sky by
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Speaker 1: the report of a gun from the Hohenzoleern and celestial cheering.
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Speaker 1: He looked up and found the view obstructed by the
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Speaker 1: houses on either side of the street. He hesitated, and
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Speaker 1: then curiosity took him back towards the bank of the river.
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Speaker 1: Here his view was inconvenienced by trees, and it was
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Speaker 1: with a start that he discovered the zeppelin, which he
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Speaker 1: knew had still a quarter of her magazines to fill,
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Speaker 1: was rising over Goat Island. She had not waited for
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Speaker 1: her compliment of ammunition. It occurred to him that he
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Speaker 1: was left behind. He ducked back among the trees and
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Speaker 1: bushes until he felt secure from any afterthought on the
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Speaker 1: part of the zeppelin's captain. Then his curiosity to see
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Speaker 1: what the German air fleet faced overcame him and drew
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Speaker 1: him at last half way across the bridge to go Island.
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Speaker 1: From that point he had nearly a hemisphere of sky
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Speaker 1: and got his first glimpse of the Asiatic airships low
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Speaker 1: in the sky above the glittering tumults of the upper rapids.
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Speaker 1: They were far less impressive than the German ships. He
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Speaker 1: could not judge the distance, and they flew edgeways to
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Speaker 1: him so as to conceal the broader aspect of their bulk.
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Speaker 1: Bert stood there in the middle of the bridge, in
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Speaker 1: a place that most people who knew it remembered as
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Speaker 1: a place populous with sightseers and excursionists, and he was
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Speaker 1: the only human being in sight there above him, very
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Speaker 1: high in the heavens, the contending air fleets maneuvered below him.
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Speaker 1: The river seethed like a sluice towards the American fall.
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Speaker 1: He was curiously dressed. His cheap blue surge trousers were
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Speaker 1: thrust into German airship rubber boots, and on his head
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Speaker 1: he wore an aeronaut's white cap that was a trifle
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Speaker 1: too large for him. He thrust that back to reveal
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Speaker 1: hysteric little kockne face, still scarred upon the brow gaw.
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Speaker 1: He whispered, he stared, he gesticulated once or twice, he
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Speaker 1: shouted and applauded. Then at a certain point terror seized him,
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Speaker 1: and he took to his heels in the direction of
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Speaker 1: Goat Island Part four. For a time after they were
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Speaker 1: in sight of each other, neither fleet attempted to engage.
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Speaker 1: The Germans numbered sixty seven great airships, and they maintained
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Speaker 1: the crescent formation at a height of nearly four thousand feet.
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Speaker 1: They kept a distance of about one and a half lengths,
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Speaker 1: so that the horns of the crescent were nearly thirty
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Speaker 1: miles apart, closely in tow of the airships of the
10:42
Speaker 1: extreme squadrons on either wing were about thirty drakenflagger ready manned,
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Speaker 1: but these were too small and distant for Bert to distinguish.
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Speaker 1: At first, only what was called the Southern fleet of
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Speaker 1: the Asiatics was visible to him. It consisted of forty
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Speaker 1: airships carrying altogether nearly four hundred one man flying machines
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Speaker 1: upon their flanks, and for some time it flew slowly
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Speaker 1: and at a minimum distance of perhaps a dozen miles
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Speaker 1: from the Germans eastward across their front. At first Bert
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Speaker 1: could distinguish only the greater bulks than he perceived the
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Speaker 1: one man machines as a multitude of very small objects
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Speaker 1: drifting like moats in the sunshine about and beneath the
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Speaker 1: larger shapes. Bert saw nothing then of the second fleet
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Speaker 1: of the Asiatics, though probably that was coming into sight
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Speaker 1: of the Germans at the time. In the northwest. The
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Speaker 1: air was very still, the sky almost without a cloud,
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Speaker 1: and the German fleet had risen to an immense height,
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Speaker 1: so that the airships seemed no longer of any considerable size.
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Speaker 1: Both ends of their crescent showed plainly as they beat southward.
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Speaker 1: They passed slowly between Bert and the sunlight, and became
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Speaker 1: black outlines of themselves. The Draken Flagers appeared as little
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Speaker 1: flecks of black on either wing of this aerial armada.
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Speaker 1: The two fleets seemed in no hurry to engage. The
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Speaker 1: Asiatics went far away into the east, quickening their pace
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Speaker 1: and rising as they did so, and then tailed out
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Speaker 1: into a long column and came flying back, rising towards
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Speaker 1: the German left. The squadrons of the latter came about
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Speaker 1: facing this oblique advance, and suddenly little flickerings and a
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Speaker 1: faint crepitating sound told that they had opened fire. For
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Speaker 1: a time, no effect was visible to the watcher on
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Speaker 1: the bridge. Then, like a handful of snowflakes, the Draken
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Speaker 1: Flagger swooped to the attack, and a multitude of red
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Speaker 1: specks whirled up to meet them. It was, to Bert's sense,
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Speaker 1: not only enormously remote, but singularly inhuman. Not four hours
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Speaker 1: since he had been on one of those very airships,
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Speaker 1: and yet they seemed to him now not gas bags
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Speaker 1: carrying men, but strange sentient creatures that moved about and
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Speaker 1: did things with the purpose of their own. The flight
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Speaker 1: of the Asiatic and German flying machines joined and dropped
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Speaker 1: earthward became like a handful of white and red rose
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Speaker 1: petals flung from a distant window. Grew larger until Bert
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Speaker 1: could see the overturned ones spinning through the air, and
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Speaker 1: were hidden by great volumes of dark smoke that were
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Speaker 1: rising in the direction of Buffalo. For a time they
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Speaker 1: all were hidden. Then two or three white and a
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Speaker 1: number of red ones rose again into the sky like
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Speaker 1: a swarm of big butterflies, and circled fighting, and drove
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Speaker 1: away out of sight again towards the east. A heavy
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Speaker 1: report recalled Bert's eyes to the zenith, and behold, the
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Speaker 1: great crescent had lost its dressing and burst into a
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Speaker 1: disorderly long cloud of airships. One had dropped half way
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Speaker 1: down the sky. It was flaming fore and aft, and
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Speaker 1: even as Bert looked, it turned over and fell, spinning
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Speaker 1: over and over itself, and vanished into the smoke of Buffalo.
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Speaker 1: Bert's mouth opened and shut, and he clutched tighter on
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Speaker 1: the rail of the bridge. For some moments they seemed
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Speaker 1: long moments, the two fleets remained without any further change,
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Speaker 1: flying obliquely towards each other and making what came to
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Speaker 1: Bert's ears as a midget uproar. Then suddenly from either side,
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Speaker 1: airships began dropping out of alignment, smitten by missiles. He
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Speaker 1: could neither see nor trace the string of Asiatic ships
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Speaker 1: swung round and either charged into or over it was
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Speaker 1: difficult to say. From below the shattered lines of the Germans,
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Speaker 1: who seemed to open out to give way to them.
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Speaker 1: Some sort of maneuvering began, but Bert could not grasp
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Speaker 1: its import. The left of the battle became a confused
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Speaker 1: dance of airships for some minutes. Up there, the two
14:51
Speaker 1: crossing lines of ships looked so close it seemed like
14:54
Speaker 1: a hand to hand scuffle in the sky. Then they
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Speaker 1: broke up into groups and duels. The dec of German
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Speaker 1: airships towards the lower sky increased. One of them flared
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Speaker 1: down and vanished far away in the north. Two dropped
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Speaker 1: with something twisted and crippled in their movements. Then a
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Speaker 1: group of antagonists came down from the zenith in an
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Speaker 1: eddying conflict. Two Asiatics against one German and were presently
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Speaker 1: joined by another and drove away eastward altogether, with others
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Speaker 1: dropping out of the German line to join them. One
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Speaker 1: Asiatic either rammed or collided with a still more gigantic German,
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Speaker 1: and the two went spinning to destruction together. The northern
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Speaker 1: squadron of Asiatics came into the battle. Unknoted by Bert,
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Speaker 1: except that the multitude of ships above seemed presently increased.
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Speaker 1: In a little while, the fight was utter confusion. Drifting
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Speaker 1: on the whole to the southwest against the wind, it
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Speaker 1: became more and more a series of group encounters. Here
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Speaker 1: a huge German airship flamed earthward, with a dozen flat
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Speaker 1: Asiatic craft about her, crushing her every attempt to recover.
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Speaker 1: Here another hung with its screw, fighting off the swordsmen
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Speaker 1: from a swarm of flying machines. Here again an Agiatic
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Speaker 1: aflame at either end swooped out of the battle. His
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Speaker 1: attention went from incident to incident. In the vast clearness overhead.
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Speaker 1: These conspicuous cases of destruction caught and held his mind.
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Speaker 1: It was only very slowly that any sort of scheme
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Speaker 1: manifested itself between those nearer, more striking episodes. The mass
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Speaker 1: of the airships that eddied remotely above was, however, neither
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Speaker 1: destroying nor destroyed. The majority of them seemed to be
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Speaker 1: going at full speed and circling upward for position, exchanging
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Speaker 1: ineffectual shots as they did so. Very little ramming was
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Speaker 1: essayed after the first tragic downfall of Rammer and Rammed,
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Speaker 1: and whatever attempts at boarding were made were invisible. To Bert.
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Speaker 1: There seemed, however, a steady attempt to isolate antagonists, to
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Speaker 1: cut them off from their fellows and bear them down,
17:02
Speaker 1: causing a perpetual sailing back and interlacing of these shoaling bulks.
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Speaker 1: The greater number of the Asiatics and their swifter healing
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Speaker 1: movements gave them the effect of persistently attacking the Germans overhead,
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Speaker 1: and evidently endeavoring to keep itself in touch with the
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Speaker 1: works of Niagara. A body of German airships drew itself
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Speaker 1: together into a compact phalanx, and the Asiatics became more
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Speaker 1: and more intent upon breaking this up. He was grotesquely
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Speaker 1: reminded of fish in a fish pond, struggling for crumbs.
17:35
Speaker 1: He could see puny puffs of smoke and the flash
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Speaker 1: of bombs, but never a sound came down to him.
17:41
Speaker 1: A flapping shadow passed for a moment between Bert and
17:44
Speaker 1: the sun, and was followed by another. A weiring of engines,
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Speaker 1: click clock, glitter, clock smote upon his ears. Instantly he
17:55
Speaker 1: forgot the zenith, perhaps one hundred yards above the water,
17:59
Speaker 1: out of the south, riding like valkyries swiftly through the
18:02
Speaker 1: air on the strange steeds the engineering of Europe had
18:06
Speaker 1: begotten upon the artistic inspiration of Japan. Came a long
18:10
Speaker 1: string of Asiatic swordsmen. The wings flapped jerkily, click block, clitter, clock,
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Speaker 1: and the machines drove up. They spread and ceased, and
18:21
Speaker 1: the apparatus came soaring through the air. So they rose
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Speaker 1: and fell and rose again. They passed so closely overhead
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Speaker 1: that Bert could hear their voices calling to one another.
18:32
Speaker 1: They swooped towards Niagara City and landed one after another
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Speaker 1: in a long line in a clear space before the hotel.
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Speaker 1: But he did not stay to watch them land. One
18:42
Speaker 1: yellow face had craned over and looked at him, and
18:45
Speaker 1: for one enigmatical instant met his eyes. It was then
18:50
Speaker 1: the idea came to Bert that he was altogether too
18:53
Speaker 1: conspicuous in the middle of the bridge, and that he
18:55
Speaker 1: took to his heels toward Goat Island. Thence dodge about
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Speaker 1: among the trees with perhaps an excessive self consciousness. He
19:04
Speaker 1: watched the rest of the struggle. Part five. When Bert's
19:10
Speaker 1: sense of security was sufficiently restored for him to watch
19:13
Speaker 1: the battle again, he perceived that a brisk little fight
19:16
Speaker 1: was in progress between the Asiatic aeronauts and the German
19:20
Speaker 1: engineers for the possession of Niagara City. It was the
19:23
Speaker 1: first time in the whole course of the war that
19:26
Speaker 1: he had seen anything resembling fighting as he had studied
19:29
Speaker 1: it in the illustrated papers of his youth. It seemed
19:32
Speaker 1: to him almost as though things were coming right. He
19:35
Speaker 1: saw men carrying rifles and taking cover, and running briskly
19:39
Speaker 1: from point to point in a loose attacking formation. The
19:43
Speaker 1: first batch of aeronauts had probably been under the impression
19:46
Speaker 1: that the city was deserted. They had grounded in the
19:49
Speaker 1: open near Prospect Park and approached the houses towards the
19:53
Speaker 1: power works before they were disillusioned by a sudden fire.
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Speaker 1: They had scattered back to the cover of a bank
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Speaker 1: near the water. It was too far for them to
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Speaker 1: reach their machines again. They were lying and firing at
20:07
Speaker 1: the men in the hotels and frame houses about the
20:10
Speaker 1: power works. Then to their support came a second string
20:14
Speaker 1: of red flying machines driving up from the east. They
20:18
Speaker 1: rose up out of the haze above the houses and
20:20
Speaker 1: came round in a long curve, as if surveying the
20:23
Speaker 1: position below. The fire of the Germans rose to a roar,
20:27
Speaker 1: and one of those soaring shapes gave an abrupt jerk
20:30
Speaker 1: backward and fell among the houses. The others swooped down
20:34
Speaker 1: exactly like great birds upon the roof of the powerhouse.
20:38
Speaker 1: They caught upon it, and from each sprang a nimble
20:41
Speaker 1: little figure and ran towards the parapet. Other flapping bird
20:45
Speaker 1: shapes came into this affair, but Bert had not seen
20:48
Speaker 1: their coming. A staccato of shots came over to him,
20:52
Speaker 1: reminding him of army maneuvers, of newspaper descriptions of fights,
20:56
Speaker 1: of all that was entirely correct in his conception of warfare.
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Speaker 1: He saw quite a number of Germans running from the
21:02
Speaker 1: outlying houses towards the powerhouse. Two fell, one lay still,
21:08
Speaker 1: but the other wriggled and made efforts for a time.
21:11
Speaker 1: The hotel that was used as a hospital, and to
21:14
Speaker 1: which he had helped carry the wounded men from the
21:16
Speaker 1: zeppelin earlier in the day, suddenly ran up The Geneva
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Speaker 1: flag The town that had seemed so quiet had evidently
21:23
Speaker 1: been concealing a considerable number of Germans, and they were
21:27
Speaker 1: now concentrating to hold the central powerhouse. He wondered what
21:31
Speaker 1: ammunition they might have. More and more of the asiatic
21:35
Speaker 1: flying machines came into the conflict. They had disposed of
21:38
Speaker 1: the unfortunate German drakenflagger and were now aiming at the
21:42
Speaker 1: incipient aeronautic park, the electric gas generators and repair stations
21:48
Speaker 1: which formed the German base. Some landed and their aeronauts
21:52
Speaker 1: took cover and became energetic infantry soldiers. Others hovered above
21:57
Speaker 1: the fight, their men, ever and again, firing shot down
22:00
Speaker 1: at some chance exposure below. The firing came in paroxysms.
22:06
Speaker 1: Now there would be a watchful lull, and now a
22:09
Speaker 1: rapid tattoo of shots, rising to a roar. Once or twice,
22:13
Speaker 1: flying machines, as they circled warily came right overhead, and
22:18
Speaker 1: for a time Bird gave himself body and soul to cowering.
22:23
Speaker 1: Ever and again, a larger thunder mingled with the rattle
22:26
Speaker 1: and reminded him of the grapple of airships far above.
22:29
Speaker 1: But the nearer fight held his attention. Abruptly, something dropped
22:34
Speaker 1: from the zenith, something like a barrel or a huge
22:36
Speaker 1: football kirash. It smashed with an immense report. It had
22:41
Speaker 1: fallen among the grounded Asiatic aeroplanes that lay among the
22:45
Speaker 1: turf and flower beds near the river. They flew in
22:48
Speaker 1: scraps and fragments, turf trees and gravel, leaped and fell.
22:53
Speaker 1: The aeronauts still lying along the canal bank were thrown
22:57
Speaker 1: about like sacks. Cat's paws flew across the foaming water.
23:01
Speaker 1: All the windows of the hotel hospital that had been
23:03
Speaker 1: shiningly reflecting blue sky and airships the moment before, became
23:08
Speaker 1: vast black stars. Bang. A second followed. Bert looked up
23:14
Speaker 1: and was filled with the sense of a number of
23:16
Speaker 1: monstrous bodies swooping down, coming down on the whole affair,
23:21
Speaker 1: like a flight of bellying blankets, like a string of
23:24
Speaker 1: vast dish covers. The central tangle of the battle above
23:28
Speaker 1: was circling down as if to come into touch with
23:30
Speaker 1: the powerhouse fight. He got a new effect of airships altogether,
23:35
Speaker 1: as vast things coming down upon him, growing swiftly larger
23:39
Speaker 1: and larger and more overwhelming, until the houses over the
23:43
Speaker 1: way seemed small, the American rapids narrow, the bridge flimsy,
23:48
Speaker 1: the combatants infinitismal. As they came down, they became audible
23:53
Speaker 1: as a complex of shootings and vast creakings and groanings
23:57
Speaker 1: and beatings and throbbings and shouts and ship. The four
24:01
Speaker 1: shortened black eagles at the four ends of the Germans
24:04
Speaker 1: had an effect of actual combat of flying feathers. Some
24:09
Speaker 1: of these fighting airships came within five hundred feet of
24:11
Speaker 1: the ground, but could see men on the lower galleries
24:14
Speaker 1: of the Germans firing rifles, could see Asiatics clinging to
24:18
Speaker 1: the ropes, saw one man in aluminum diver's gear fall
24:22
Speaker 1: flashing headlong into the waters above Goat Island. For the
24:27
Speaker 1: first time he saw the Asiatic airships closely. From this aspect,
24:31
Speaker 1: they reminded him more than anything else, of colossal snowshoes.
24:35
Speaker 1: They had a curious patterning in black and white in
24:38
Speaker 1: forms that reminded him of the engine turned cover of
24:41
Speaker 1: a watch. They had no hanging galleries, but from little
24:45
Speaker 1: openings on the middle line peeped out men and the
24:48
Speaker 1: muzzles of guns. So driving in long, descending and ascending curves,
24:53
Speaker 1: these monsters wrestled and fought. It was like clouds fighting,
24:58
Speaker 1: like puddings, trying to assess each other. They whirled and
25:02
Speaker 1: circled about each other, and for a time through Goat
25:05
Speaker 1: Island and Niagara into a smoky twilight through which the
25:10
Speaker 1: sunlight smote in shafts and beams. They spread and closed,
25:15
Speaker 1: and spread and grappled, and drove round over the rapids
25:19
Speaker 1: and two miles away or more into Canada, and back
25:22
Speaker 1: over the falls again. A German caught fire, and the
25:26
Speaker 1: whole crowd broke away from her flare and rose about her, dispersing,
25:31
Speaker 1: leaving her to drop towards Canada and blow up as
25:34
Speaker 1: she dropped. Then, with renewed uproar, the others closed again.
25:39
Speaker 1: Once from the men in Niagara City came a sound
25:41
Speaker 1: like an ant hill cheering. Another German burnt, and one
25:45
Speaker 1: badly deflated by the prow of an antagonist, flopped out
25:49
Speaker 1: of action southward. It became more and more evident that
25:53
Speaker 1: the Germans were getting the worst of the unequal fight.
25:56
Speaker 1: More and more obviously were they being persecuted. Less and
26:01
Speaker 1: less did they seem to fight with any object other
26:03
Speaker 1: than escape. The Asiatics swept by them and above them,
26:08
Speaker 1: ripped their bladders, set them alight, picked off their dimly
26:11
Speaker 1: seen men in diving clothes, who struggled against fire and fear,
26:15
Speaker 1: with fire extinguishers and silk ribbons in the inner netting.
26:20
Speaker 1: They answered only with ineffectual shots. Thence the battle circled
26:25
Speaker 1: back over Niagara, and then suddenly the Germans, as if
26:29
Speaker 1: at a preconcerted signal, broke and dispersed, going east, west,
26:35
Speaker 1: north and south in open and confused flight. The Asiatics,
26:40
Speaker 1: as they realized this, rose to fly above them and
26:43
Speaker 1: after them. Only one little knot of four Germans and
26:47
Speaker 1: perhaps a dozen Asiatics remained fighting about the hohen Zalern
26:52
Speaker 1: and the Prince as he circled in a last attempt
26:54
Speaker 1: to save Niagara. Round they swooped once again over the
26:58
Speaker 1: Canadian fall, over the way east of waters, eastward until
27:01
Speaker 1: they were distant and small, and then round and back, hurrying, bounding,
27:07
Speaker 1: swooping towards the one gaping spectator. The whole struggling mass
27:12
Speaker 1: approached very swiftly, growing rapidly larger and coming out black
27:17
Speaker 1: and featureless against the afternoon sun and above the blinding
27:20
Speaker 1: welter of the upper rapids. It grew like a storm cloud,
27:24
Speaker 1: until once more it darkened the sky. The flat Asiatic
27:28
Speaker 1: airships kept high above the Germans and behind them, and
27:32
Speaker 1: fired unanswered bullets into their gas chambers and upon their flanks.
27:36
Speaker 1: The one man flying machines hovered and alighted, like a
27:39
Speaker 1: swarm of attacking bees. Nearer they came, and nearer filling
27:44
Speaker 1: the lower heaven. Two of the Germans swooped and rose again,
27:48
Speaker 1: But the ho in Zolearn had suffered too much for that.
27:51
Speaker 1: She lifted weakly, turned sharply as if to get out
27:55
Speaker 1: of the battle, burst into flames fore and aft, swept
27:58
Speaker 1: down the water, splashed into it obliquely, and rolled over
28:02
Speaker 1: and over, and came down stream, rolling and smashing and
28:06
Speaker 1: writhing like a thing alive, halting, and then coming on
28:10
Speaker 1: again with a torn and bent propeller, still beating the air.
28:14
Speaker 1: The bursting flames spluttered out again in clouds of steam.
28:18
Speaker 1: It was a disaster, gigantic in its dimensions. She lay
28:22
Speaker 1: across the rapids like an island, like tall cliffs, tall
28:26
Speaker 1: cliffs that came rolling, smoking and crumpling and collapsing, advancing
28:31
Speaker 1: with a sort of fluctuating rapidity. Upon Bert. One Asiatic airship.
28:36
Speaker 1: It looked to Bert from below like three hundred yards
28:39
Speaker 1: of pavement, whirled back and circled two or three times
28:42
Speaker 1: over that great overthrow, and half a dozen crimson flying
28:46
Speaker 1: machines danced for a moment like great midges in the sunlight,
28:50
Speaker 1: before they swept on after their fellows. The rest of
28:53
Speaker 1: the fight had already gone over the island, a wild
28:56
Speaker 1: crescendo of shots and yells and smashing uproar. It was
29:00
Speaker 1: hidden from Bert now by the trees of the island,
29:03
Speaker 1: and forgotten by him in the nearer spectacle of the
29:06
Speaker 1: huge advance of the defeated German airships. Something fell with
29:10
Speaker 1: a mighty smashing and splittering of boughs unheeded behind him.
29:15
Speaker 1: It seemed for a time that the hohen zoleern must
29:19
Speaker 1: needs break her back upon the parting of the waters.
29:22
Speaker 1: And then for a time her propeller flopped and frothed
29:25
Speaker 1: in the river and thrust the mass of buckling, crumpled
29:28
Speaker 1: wreckage towards the American shore. Then the sweep of the
29:32
Speaker 1: torrent that foamed down to the American fall caught her,
29:35
Speaker 1: and in another minute the immense mass of deflating wreckage
29:39
Speaker 1: with flames spurting out in three new places, had crashed
29:42
Speaker 1: against the bridge that joined Goat Island and Niagara City
29:46
Speaker 1: and forced a long arm as it were in a
29:48
Speaker 1: heaving tangle under the central span. Then the middle chambers
29:52
Speaker 1: blew up with a loud report, and in another moment
29:56
Speaker 1: the bridge had given way, and the main bulk of
29:58
Speaker 1: the airship, like some grotelesque, crippled in rags, staggered, flapping
30:03
Speaker 1: and waving flambeaux, to the crest of the fall, and
30:06
Speaker 1: hesitated there and vanished in a desperate, suicidal leap. Its
30:11
Speaker 1: detached fore end remained jammed against that little island Green
30:16
Speaker 1: Island used to be called, which forms the stepping stone
30:19
Speaker 1: between the mainland and Goat Island's patch of trees. Bert
30:24
Speaker 1: followed this disaster from the parting of the waters to
30:27
Speaker 1: the bridgehead. Then, regardless of cover, regardless of the Asiatic
30:32
Speaker 1: airships hovering like a huge house roof without walls above
30:35
Speaker 1: the suspension bridge, he sprinted along towards the north and
30:39
Speaker 1: came out for the first time upon that rocky point
30:42
Speaker 1: by Luna Island that looks sheer down upon the American Fall.
30:47
Speaker 1: There he stood breathless amidst that eternal rush of sound,
30:51
Speaker 1: breathless and staring far below, and traveling rapidly down the
30:56
Speaker 1: gorge whirled something like a huge empty sack. For him,
31:00
Speaker 1: it meant what did it not mean? The German air fleet, Kurt,
31:05
Speaker 1: the Prince Europe, all things stable and familiar, the forces
31:09
Speaker 1: that had brought him, the forces that had seemed indisputably victorious,
31:13
Speaker 1: and had went down the rapids like an empty sack,
31:16
Speaker 1: and left the visible world to Asia, to yellow people,
31:19
Speaker 1: beyond Christendom, to all that was terrible and strange, remote
31:25
Speaker 1: over Canada, receded the rest of that conflict, and vanished
31:29
Speaker 1: beyond the range of his vision. End of Chapter eight,
31:35
Speaker 1: Parts three, four, and five, recorded by William Tomkoe