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The War in the Air Chapter 6 Parts 4-6 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Chapter six, Parts four, five, and six 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 William tom Coe.
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Speaker 1: War in the Air by H. G. Wells, Part four.
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Speaker 1: The lamentable incidents that followed the surrender of New York seem,
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Speaker 1: now in the retrospect, to be but the necessary and
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Speaker 1: inevitable consequence of the clash of modern appliances and social
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Speaker 1: conditions produced by the scientific century on the one hand,
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Speaker 1: and the tradition of a crude romantic patriotism on the other.
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Speaker 1: At first, people receive the fact with an irresponsible detachment,
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Speaker 1: much as they would have received the slowing down of
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Speaker 1: the train in which they were traveling, or the erection
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Speaker 1: of a public monument by the city to which they longed.
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Speaker 1: We have surrendered, dear me, have we? Was rather the
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Speaker 1: manner in which the first news was met. They took
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Speaker 1: it in the same spectacular spirit they had displayed at
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Speaker 1: the first apparition of the air fleet. Only slowly was
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Speaker 1: this realization of a capitulation suffused with a flush of passion.
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Speaker 1: Only with reflection. Did they make any personal application. We
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Speaker 1: have surrendered came later in US America is defeated. Then
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Speaker 1: they began to burn and tingle. The newspapers, which were
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Speaker 1: issued about one in the morning, contained no particulars of
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Speaker 1: the terms upon which New York had yielded, nor did
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Speaker 1: they give any intimation of the quality of the brief
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Speaker 1: conflict that had preceded the capitulation. The later issues remedied
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Speaker 1: these deficiencies. There came the explicit statement of the agreement
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Speaker 1: to vittle the German airships, to supply the complement of
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Speaker 1: explosives to replace those employed in the fight and in
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Speaker 1: the destruction of the North American fleet, to pay the
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Speaker 1: enormous ransom of forty million dollars, and to surrender the
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Speaker 1: flotilla in the East River. There came two longer and
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Speaker 1: longer descriptions of the smashing up of the city hall
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Speaker 1: and the Navy yard, and people began to realize faintly
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Speaker 1: what those brief minutes of uproar had meant. They read
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Speaker 1: the tales of men blown to bits, of feudal soldiers
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Speaker 1: in that localized battle fighting against Hope amidst an indescribable
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Speaker 1: wreckage of flags hauled down by weeping men. And these
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Speaker 1: strange nocturnal editions contained also the first brief cables from
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Speaker 1: Europe of the fleet disaster, the North Atlantic Fleet for
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Speaker 1: which New York had always felt an especial pride and solicitude. Slowly,
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Speaker 1: hour by hour, the collective consciousness woke up. The tide
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Speaker 1: of patriotic astonishment and humiliation came floating in America had
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Speaker 1: come upon disaster. Suddenly New York discovered herself with amazement,
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Speaker 1: giving place to wrath unspeakable, a conquered city under the
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Speaker 1: hand of her conqueror. As that fact shaped itself in
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Speaker 1: the public mind, there sprang up, as flames spring up,
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Speaker 1: an angry repudiation. No, cried New York, waking in the dawn.
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Speaker 1: No I am not defeated. This is a dream. Before
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Speaker 1: day broke, the swift American anger was running through all
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Speaker 1: the city, through every soul. In those contagious millions, before
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Speaker 1: it took action, before it took shape, the men in
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Speaker 1: the airships could feel the gigantic insurgents of emotion, as
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Speaker 1: cattle and natural creatures feel, it is said, the coming
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Speaker 1: of an earthquake. The newspapers of the Knight group first
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Speaker 1: gave the thing words and a formula. We do not agree,
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Speaker 1: they said, simply, we have been betrayed. Men took that
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Speaker 1: up everywhere. It passed from mouth to mouth, at every
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Speaker 1: street corner. Under the paling lights of dawn, orators stood unchecked,
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Speaker 1: calling upon the spirit of America to arise, making the
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Speaker 1: shame of personal reality to every one who heard. To Bert,
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Speaker 1: listening five hundred feet above it, it seemed that the city,
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Speaker 1: which had at first produced only confused noises, was now
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Speaker 1: humming like a hive of bees, of very angry bees.
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Speaker 1: After the smashing of the City Hall and post Office,
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Speaker 1: the white flag had been hoisted from a tower of
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Speaker 1: the old Park Row building, and thither had gone. Mayor
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Speaker 1: o'hagen urged thither, indeed, by the terror stricken property owners
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Speaker 1: of Lower New York, to negotiate the capitulation with von Winterfeld.
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Speaker 1: The Vaterland, having dropped the Secretary by a rope ladder,
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Speaker 1: remained hovering, circling very slowly above the great buildings Old
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Speaker 1: anne Knew that clustered around City Hall Park, while the
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Speaker 1: helm holes which had done the fighting there, rose overhead
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Speaker 1: to a height of perhaps two thousand feet, so Bert
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Speaker 1: had a near view of all that occurred in that
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Speaker 1: central place. The city hall and court House, the post office,
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Speaker 1: and the massive buildings on the west side of Broadway
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Speaker 1: had been badly damaged, and the three former were a
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Speaker 1: heap of blackened ruins. In the case of the first two,
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Speaker 1: the loss of life had not been considerable, but a
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Speaker 1: great multitude of workers, including many girls and women, had
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Speaker 1: been caught in the destruction of the post office, and
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Speaker 1: a little army of volunteers with white badges entered behind
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Speaker 1: the firemen, bringing out the often still living bodies, for
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Speaker 1: the most part frightfully charred, and carrying them into the
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Speaker 1: big Monson building close at hand. Everywhere the busy firemen
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Speaker 1: were directing their bright streams of water upon the smoldering masses.
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Speaker 1: Their hose lay about the square, and long cordons of
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Speaker 1: police held back the gathering black masses of people, chiefly
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Speaker 1: from the east side, from these central activities. In violent
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Speaker 1: and extraordinary contrast with this scene of destruction, close at
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Speaker 1: hand were the huge newspaper establishments of park Row. They
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Speaker 1: were all alight and working. They had not been abandoned,
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Speaker 1: even while the actual bomb throwing was going on, and
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Speaker 1: now staff and presses were vehebently active, getting out the story,
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Speaker 1: the immense and dreadful story of the night, developing comment,
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Speaker 1: and in most cases spreading the idea of resistance under
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Speaker 1: the very noses of the airships. For a long time,
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Speaker 1: Bert could not imagine what these callously active offices could be.
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Speaker 1: Then he detected the noise of the presses and emitted
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Speaker 1: his gaw Beyond these newspaper buildings again, and partially hidden
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Speaker 1: by the arches of the old elevated railway of New York,
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Speaker 1: long since converted into a mono rail there was another
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Speaker 1: cordon of police and a sort of encampment of ambulances
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Speaker 1: and doctors, busy with the dead and wounded who had
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Speaker 1: been killed early in the night by the panic upon
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Speaker 1: Brooklyn Bridge. All this he saw, in the perspectives of
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Speaker 1: a bird's eye view, as things happening in a big,
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Speaker 1: irregular shaped pit below him, between cliffs of high building. Northward,
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Speaker 1: he looked along the steep canyon of Broadway, down whose
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Speaker 1: length at intervals crowds were assembling about excited speakers, And
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Speaker 1: when he lifted his eyes he saw the chimneys and
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Speaker 1: cable stacks and roof spaces of New York and everywhere.
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Speaker 1: Now over these the watching, debating people clustered, except where
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Speaker 1: the fires raged and the jets of water flew. Everywhere, too,
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Speaker 1: were flag staffs devoid of flags. One white sheet drooped
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Speaker 1: and flapped and drooped again over the park row buildings
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Speaker 1: and upon the lurid lights, the festering movement and intense
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Speaker 1: shadows of this strange scene. There was breaking now, the cold,
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Speaker 1: impartial dawn for Bert small ways. All this was framed
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Speaker 1: in the frame of the open porthole. It was a pale,
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Speaker 1: dim world outside that dark and tangible rim. All night
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Speaker 1: he had clutched at that rim, jumped and quivered at explosions,
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Speaker 1: and watched phantom events. Now he had been high and
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Speaker 1: now low, now almost beyond hearing, now flying close to
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Speaker 1: crashings and shouts and outcries. He had seen airships flying
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Speaker 1: low and swift over darkened and groaning streets, watched great
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Speaker 1: buildings suddenly reddle it amidst the shadows, crumple at the
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Speaker 1: smashing impact of bombs, witnessed for the first time in
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Speaker 1: his life through grotesque swift onset of insatiable conflagrations from
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Speaker 1: it all. He felt detached, disembodied. The Vaterland did not
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Speaker 1: even fling a bomb. She watched and ruled then down.
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Speaker 1: They had come at last to hover over City Hall Park,
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Speaker 1: and it had crept in upon his mind chillingly, terrifyingly,
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Speaker 1: that these illuminated black masses were great offices of fire,
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Speaker 1: and that the going to and fro of minute dim
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Speaker 1: specters of lantern lit gray and white was a harvesting
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Speaker 1: of the wounded and the dead. As the light grew clearer,
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Speaker 1: he began to understand more and more what these crumpled
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Speaker 1: black things signified. He had watched hour after hour since
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Speaker 1: first New York had risen out of the blue indistinctness
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Speaker 1: of the landfall. With the daylight, he experienced an intolerable fatigue.
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Speaker 1: He lifted weary eyes to the pink flush in the sky,
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Speaker 1: yawned immensely, and crawled back, whispering to himself, across the
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Speaker 1: cabin to the locker. He did not so much lie
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Speaker 1: down upon that as fall upon it, and instantly become
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Speaker 1: asleep there. Hours after, sprawling undignified and sleeping profoundly, Kurt
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Speaker 1: found him a very image of the democratic mind. Confronted
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Speaker 1: with the problems of a time too complex for its apprehension.
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Speaker 1: His face was pale and indifferent, his mouth wide open,
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Speaker 1: and he snored. He snored disagreeably. Kurt regarded him for
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Speaker 1: a moment with a mild distaste. Then he kicked his ankle.
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Speaker 1: Wake up, he said, to Smallways, stare and lie down. Decent.
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Speaker 1: Bert sat up and rubbed his eyes. Any more fightin yet,
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Speaker 1: he asked, No, said Kurt, and sat down. A tired man.
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Speaker 1: Got he cried, presently rubbing his hands over his face.
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Speaker 1: But I'd like a cold bath. I've been looking for
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Speaker 1: stray bullet holes in the air chambers all night until now,
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Speaker 1: he yawned. I must sleep. You'd better clear out, small Ways.
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Speaker 1: I can't stand you here this morning. You're so infernally
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Speaker 1: ugly and useless. Have you had your rations? No, Well,
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Speaker 1: go in and get em and don't come back. Stick
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Speaker 1: in the Gallery. Part five. So Bert, slightly refreshed by
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Speaker 1: coffee and sleep, resumed his helpless co operation in the war.
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Speaker 1: In the air. He went down into the little gallery
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Speaker 1: as a lieutenant had directed, and clung to the rail
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Speaker 1: at the extreme end beyond the lookout man, trying to
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Speaker 1: seem as inconspicuous and harmless, a fragment of life as possible.
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Speaker 1: A wind was rising rather strongly from the southeast. It
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Speaker 1: obliged the waterland to come about in that direction, and
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Speaker 1: made her roll a great deal. As she went to
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Speaker 1: and fro over Manhattan Island. Away in the northwest, clouds gathered.
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Speaker 1: The throb throb of her slow screw working against the
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Speaker 1: breeze was much more perceptible than when she was going
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Speaker 1: full speed ahead, and the friction of the wind against
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Speaker 1: the under side of the gas chamber drove a series
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Speaker 1: of shallow ripples along it, and made a faint flapping sound,
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Speaker 1: like but fainter then the beating of ripples under the
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Speaker 1: stem of a boat. She was stationed over the temporary
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Speaker 1: city hall in the Park Row Building, and every now
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Speaker 1: and then she would descend to resume community location with
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Speaker 1: the Mayor and with Washington. But the restlessness of the
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Speaker 1: Prince would not suffer him to remain for long in
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Speaker 1: any one place. Now he would circle over the Hudson
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Speaker 1: and East River. Now he would go up high, as
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Speaker 1: if to peer away into the blue distances. Once he
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Speaker 1: ascended so swiftly and so far that mountain sickness overtook
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Speaker 1: him and the crew and forced him down again, and
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Speaker 1: Bert shared the dizziness and nausea. The swaying view varied
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Speaker 1: with these changes of altitude. Now they would be low
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Speaker 1: and close, and he would distinguish in that steep unusual
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Speaker 1: perspective windows, doors, street and sky, signs, people and the
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Speaker 1: minutest details, and watch the enigmatical behavior of crowds and
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Speaker 1: clusters upon the roofs and in the streets. Then as
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Speaker 1: they soared, the details would shrink, the sides of streets
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Speaker 1: draw together, the view widened, the people ceased to be significant.
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Speaker 1: At the highest the effect was that of a cond
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Speaker 1: cave relief. Map Bert saw the dark and crowded land everywhere,
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Speaker 1: intersected by shining waters. Saw the Hudson River like a
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Speaker 1: spear of silver, and Lower Island sound like a shield.
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Speaker 1: Even to Bert's unphilosophical mind, the contrast of city below
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Speaker 1: and fleet above pointed in opposition, the opposition of the
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Speaker 1: adventurous Americans tradition and character with German order and discipline. Below,
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Speaker 1: the immense buildings, tremendous and fine as they were, seemed
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Speaker 1: like the giant trees of a jungle fighting for life.
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Speaker 1: Their picturesque magnificence was as planless as the chances of
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Speaker 1: crag and gorge. The casualty, enhanced by the smoke and
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Speaker 1: confusion of still unsubdued and spreading conflagrations in the sky,
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Speaker 1: saw the German airships like beings in a different, entirely
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Speaker 1: more orderly world, all oriented to the same angle of
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Speaker 1: the horizon, uniform in build and appearance, moving act with
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Speaker 1: one purpose, as a pack of wolves will move, distributed
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Speaker 1: with the most precise and effectual co operation. It dawned
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Speaker 1: upon Bert that hardly a third of the fleet was visible.
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Speaker 1: The others had gone upon errands. He could not imagine
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Speaker 1: beyond the compass of that great circle of earth and sky,
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Speaker 1: he wondered, but there was no one to ask. As
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Speaker 1: a day wore on, about a dozen reappeared in the east,
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Speaker 1: with their stores replenished from the flotilla and towing a
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Speaker 1: number of draken flagger. Towards afternoon, the weather thickened. Driving
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Speaker 1: clouds appeared in the southwest and ran together and seemed
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Speaker 1: to engender more clouds, and the wind came round into
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Speaker 1: that quarter and blew stronger. Towards the evening, the wind
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Speaker 1: became a gale into which the now tossing airships had
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Speaker 1: to beat. All that day, the Prince was negotiating with Washington,
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Speaker 1: while his detached scouts sought far and wide over the
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Speaker 1: Eastern States looking for anything resembling an air roonautic park.
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Speaker 1: A squadron of twenty airships detached over night, had dropped
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Speaker 1: out of the air upon Niagara and was holding the
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Speaker 1: town and power works. Meanwhile, the insurrectionary movement in the
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Speaker 1: giant city grew uncontrollable. In spite of five great fires
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Speaker 1: already involving many acres and spreading steadily, New York was
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Speaker 1: still not satisfied that she was beaten. At first, the
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Speaker 1: rebellious spirit below found vent only in isolated shouts, street
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Speaker 1: crowded speeches, and newspaper suggestions. Then had found much more
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Speaker 1: definite expression in the appearance in the morning sunlight of
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Speaker 1: American flags at point after point above the architectural cliffs
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Speaker 1: of the city. It is quite possible that in many cases,
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Speaker 1: the spirited display of bunting by a city already surrendered
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Speaker 1: was the outcome of the innocent informality of the American mind.
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Speaker 1: But it is also undeniable that in Many, it was
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Speaker 1: a deliberate indication that the people felt wicked. The German
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Speaker 1: sense of correctitude was deeply shocked by this outbreak. The
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Speaker 1: Graf von Winterfeld immediately communicated with the mayor and pointed
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Speaker 1: out the irregularity, and the fire lookout stations were instructed
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Speaker 1: in the matter. The New York Police was speedily hard
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Speaker 1: at work, and a foolish contest in full swing between
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Speaker 1: impassioned citizens resolved to keep the flag flying and irritated
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Speaker 1: and worried officers instructed to pull it down. The trouble
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Speaker 1: became acute at last in the streets above Columbia University.
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Speaker 1: The captain of the airship watching this quarter seems to
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Speaker 1: have stooped to last so and dragged from its staff
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Speaker 1: a flag hoisted upon Morgan Hall. As he did so,
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Speaker 1: a volley of rifle and revolver shots was fired from
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Speaker 1: the upper windows of the huge apartment building that stands
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Speaker 1: between the university and Riverside Drive. Most of these were ineffectual,
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Speaker 1: but two or three perforated gas chambers and once smashed
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Speaker 1: the hand and arm of a man upon the forward platform.
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Speaker 1: The sentinel on the lower gallery immediately replied, and the
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Speaker 1: machine gun on the shield of the Eagle let fly,
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Speaker 1: and promptly stopped any further shots. The airship rose and
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Speaker 1: signaled the flagship and City Hall police and militiamen were
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Speaker 1: directed at once to the spot, and this particular incident closed.
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Speaker 1: But hard upon that came the desperate attempt of a
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Speaker 1: party of young clubmen from New York, who, inspired by
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Speaker 1: patriotic and adventurous imaginations, slipped off in half a dozen
17:33
Speaker 1: motor cars to Beacon Hill and set to work with
17:35
Speaker 1: remarkable vigor to improvise a fort about the Don swivel
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Speaker 1: gun that had been placed there. They found it still
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Speaker 1: in the hands of the disgusted gunners who had been
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Speaker 1: ordered to cease fire at the capitulation, and it was
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Speaker 1: easy to infect these men with their own spirit. They
17:52
Speaker 1: declared their gun hadn't had half a chance and were
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Speaker 1: burning to show what it could do. Directed by the newcomers,
17:59
Speaker 1: they made a train inch and bank about the mounting
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Speaker 1: of the piece, and constructed flimsy shelter pits of corrugated iron.
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Speaker 1: They were actually loading the gun when they were observed
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Speaker 1: by the airship prosen and the shell. They succeeded in
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Speaker 1: firing before the bombs of the ladder smashed them and
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Speaker 1: their crew defenses to fragments, burst over the middle gas
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Speaker 1: chambers of the brigan and brought her to earth disabled.
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Speaker 1: Upon Staten Island. She was badly deflated and dropped among
18:29
Speaker 1: trees over which her empty central gas bags spread in
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Speaker 1: canopies and festoons. Nothing, however, had caught fire, and her
18:36
Speaker 1: men were speedily at work upon her repair. They behaved
18:40
Speaker 1: with a confidence that verged upon indiscretion. While most of
18:44
Speaker 1: them commenced patching the terars of the membrane, half a
18:47
Speaker 1: dozen of them started off for the nearest road in
18:49
Speaker 1: search of a gas main, and presently found themselves prisoners
18:52
Speaker 1: in the hands of a hostile crowd. Close at hand
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Speaker 1: was a number of villa residences, whose occupants speedily developed
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Speaker 1: from an unfriendly curiosity to aggression. At that time, the
19:04
Speaker 1: police controlled of the large polyglot population of Staten Island
19:08
Speaker 1: had become very lax, had scarcely a household, but had
19:12
Speaker 1: its rifle or pistols and ammunition. These were presently produced,
19:17
Speaker 1: and after two or three misses, one of the men
19:19
Speaker 1: at work was hit in the foot. Thereupon the Germans
19:22
Speaker 1: left their sowing and mending took cover among the trees
19:25
Speaker 1: and replied. The crackling of shots speedily brought the Prosen
19:30
Speaker 1: and Keel on the scene, and with a few hand
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Speaker 1: grenades they made short work of every villa within a mile.
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Speaker 1: A number of non combatant American men, women and children
19:40
Speaker 1: were killed, and the actual assailants driven off. For a
19:44
Speaker 1: time the repairs went on in peace under the immediate
19:47
Speaker 1: protection of these two airships. Then, when they returned to
19:51
Speaker 1: their quarters and intermitted sniping and fighting round the stranded
19:55
Speaker 1: Bingen was resumed, and when on all the afternoon and
19:59
Speaker 1: merged at last in the general combat of the evening,
20:03
Speaker 1: about eight the Bingen was rushed by an armed mob
20:06
Speaker 1: and all its defenders killed after a fierce, disorderly struggle.
20:11
Speaker 1: The difficulty of the Germans in both these cases came
20:14
Speaker 1: from the impossibility of landing any efficient force, or indeed
20:18
Speaker 1: any force at all, from the air fleet. The airships
20:21
Speaker 1: were quite unequal to the transport of any adequate landing parties.
20:25
Speaker 1: Their complement of men was just sufficient to maneuver and
20:29
Speaker 1: fight them in the air. From above, they could inflict
20:32
Speaker 1: immense damage. They could reduce any organized government to a
20:36
Speaker 1: capitulation in the briefest space. But they could not disarm
20:40
Speaker 1: much less could they occupy the surrendered areas below. They
20:43
Speaker 1: had to trust to the pressure upon the authorities below
20:46
Speaker 1: of a threat to renew the bombardment. It was their
20:49
Speaker 1: sole resource, no doubt, With a highly organized and undamaged
20:54
Speaker 1: government and the homogeneous and well disciplined people, they would
20:58
Speaker 1: have sufficed to keep the peace. But this was not
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Speaker 1: the American case. Not only was the New York government
21:04
Speaker 1: a weak one and insufficiently provided with police, but the
21:08
Speaker 1: destruction of the City Hall and post office another central
21:12
Speaker 1: ganglia had hopelessly disorganized. The co operation of part with
21:16
Speaker 1: part the street cars and railways had ceased. The telephone
21:20
Speaker 1: service was out of gear and only worked intermittently. The
21:24
Speaker 1: Germans had struck at the head, and the head was
21:27
Speaker 1: conquered and stunned, only to release the body from its rule.
21:31
Speaker 1: New York had become a headless monster, no longer capable
21:34
Speaker 1: of collective submission. Everywhere, it lifted itself rebelliously everywhere. Authorities
21:40
Speaker 1: and officials, left to their own imitative were joining in
21:44
Speaker 1: the arming and flag hoisting and excitement of that afternoon.
21:49
Speaker 1: Part six, The disintegrating Truce gave place to a definite
21:54
Speaker 1: general breach with the assassination of the wetter Horn, for
21:58
Speaker 1: that is the only possible word for the act. Above
22:01
Speaker 1: Union Square, and not a mile away from the exemplary
22:04
Speaker 1: ruins of City Hall. This occurred late in the afternoon,
22:08
Speaker 1: between five and six. By that time the weather had
22:12
Speaker 1: changed very much for the worse, and the operations of
22:14
Speaker 1: the airships were embarrassed by the necessity they were under
22:17
Speaker 1: of keeping head on to the gusts. A series of
22:21
Speaker 1: squalls with hail and thunder followed one another from the
22:24
Speaker 1: south by southeast, and in order to avoid these as
22:28
Speaker 1: much as possible, the air fleet came low over the houses,
22:31
Speaker 1: diminishing its range of observation and exposing itself to a
22:35
Speaker 1: rifle attack. Over night, there had been a gun placed
22:38
Speaker 1: in Union Square. It had never been mounted, much less fired,
22:42
Speaker 1: and in the darkness after the surrender, it was taken
22:45
Speaker 1: with its supplies and put out of the way under
22:48
Speaker 1: the arches of the Great Dexter building. Here. Late in
22:51
Speaker 1: the morning it was remarked by a number of patriotic spirits.
22:55
Speaker 1: They set to work to hoist and mount it inside
22:57
Speaker 1: the upper floors of the place. They may in fact
23:00
Speaker 1: a masked battery behind the decorous office blinds, and there
23:05
Speaker 1: lay in wait as simply excited as children, until at
23:08
Speaker 1: last the stem of the luckless Venter Horn appeared, beating
23:12
Speaker 1: and rolling at quarters speed over the recently reconstructed pinnacles
23:16
Speaker 1: of Tiffany's. Promptly that one gun battery unmasked. The airship's
23:21
Speaker 1: lookout man must have seen the whole of the tenth
23:24
Speaker 1: story of the Dexter Building crumble out and smash in
23:27
Speaker 1: the street below to discover the black muzzle looking out
23:30
Speaker 1: from the shadows behind. Then perhaps the shell hit him.
23:36
Speaker 1: The gun fired two shells before the frame of the
23:38
Speaker 1: Dexter Building collapsed, and each shell raked the wetther Horn
23:42
Speaker 1: from stem to stern. They smashed her exhaustively. She crumpled
23:47
Speaker 1: up like a can that has been kicked by a
23:49
Speaker 1: heavy boot. Her forepart came down in the square, and
23:53
Speaker 1: the rest of her length, with a great snapping and
23:56
Speaker 1: twisting of shafts and stays, descended, collapsing a swart Tammany
24:00
Speaker 1: Hall and the streets towards Second Avenue. Her gas escaped
24:05
Speaker 1: to mix with air, and the air of her rent
24:07
Speaker 1: balloonette poured into her deflating gas chambers. Then with an
24:11
Speaker 1: immense impact, she exploded. The Vaterland at that time was
24:16
Speaker 1: beating up to the south of City Hall from over
24:18
Speaker 1: the ruins of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the reports of
24:21
Speaker 1: the gun, followed by the first crashes of the collapsing
24:24
Speaker 1: Dexter building, brought Kurt and small Ways to the cabin porthole.
24:28
Speaker 1: They were in time to see the flash of the
24:30
Speaker 1: exploding gun, and then they were first flattened against the
24:34
Speaker 1: window and then rolled head over heels across the floor
24:37
Speaker 1: of the cabin by the air wave of the explosion.
24:40
Speaker 1: The Vaterland bounded like a football someone has kicked, and
24:44
Speaker 1: when they looked out again, Union Square was small and
24:47
Speaker 1: remote and shattered, as though some cosmically vast giant had
24:51
Speaker 1: rolled over it. The buildings to the east of it
24:54
Speaker 1: were ablaze at a dozen points under the flaming tatters
24:58
Speaker 1: and warping skeleton of the air ship, and all the
25:01
Speaker 1: roofs and walls were ridiculously askew and crumbling. As one
25:05
Speaker 1: looked gaw said Bert, what's happened? Look at the people?
25:12
Speaker 1: But before Kurt could produce an explanation, the shrill bells
25:15
Speaker 1: of the airship were ringing to quarters and he had
25:17
Speaker 1: to go. Bert hesitated and stepped thoughtfully into the passage,
25:22
Speaker 1: looking back at the window. As he did so, he
25:24
Speaker 1: was knocked off his feet at once by the Prince,
25:27
Speaker 1: who was rushing headlong from his cabin to the central magazine.
25:31
Speaker 1: Bert had a momentary impression of the great figure of
25:34
Speaker 1: the Prince, white with rage, bristling with gigantic anger, his
25:38
Speaker 1: huge fist swinging blute und eisen, cried the Prince, as
25:43
Speaker 1: one who swears, oh, blut and eisen. Someone fell over Bert,
25:49
Speaker 1: something in the manner of falling, suggested von Winterfeld, and
25:53
Speaker 1: someone else paused and kicked him spitefully and hard. Then
25:57
Speaker 1: he was sitting up in the passage, rubbing a frishly
26:00
Speaker 1: bruised cheek and readjusting the bandage he still wore on
26:03
Speaker 1: his head. Demn that Prince, said Bert, indignant, beyond measure.
26:09
Speaker 1: He asn't the manners of an og. He stood up,
26:13
Speaker 1: collected his wits for a minute, and then went slowly
26:16
Speaker 1: towards the gangway of the little gallery. As he did so,
26:19
Speaker 1: he heard noises suggestive of the return of the Prince.
26:22
Speaker 1: The lot of them were coming back again. He shot
26:25
Speaker 1: into his cabin like a rabbit into its burrow, just
26:28
Speaker 1: in time to escape that shouting terror. He shut the door,
26:33
Speaker 1: waited until the passage was still, then went across to
26:36
Speaker 1: the window and looked out. A drift of cloud made
26:39
Speaker 1: the prospect of the streets and squares hazy, and the
26:42
Speaker 1: rolling of the airship swung the picture up and down.
26:45
Speaker 1: A few people were running to and fro, but for
26:48
Speaker 1: the most part the aspect of the district was desertion.
26:52
Speaker 1: The streets seemed to broaden out, they became clearer, and
26:56
Speaker 1: the little dots that were people larger as the Vaterland
26:59
Speaker 1: came down again. Presently she was swaying along above the
27:02
Speaker 1: lower end of Broadway. The dots below Bert saw were
27:06
Speaker 1: not running now, but standing and looking up. Then suddenly
27:11
Speaker 1: they were all running again. Something had dropped from the aeroplane,
27:15
Speaker 1: something that looked small and flimsy. It hit the pavement
27:19
Speaker 1: near a big archway just underneath Bert. A little man
27:22
Speaker 1: was sprinting along the sidewalk within half a dozen yards,
27:26
Speaker 1: and two or three others and one woman were bolting
27:29
Speaker 1: across the roadway. They were odd little figures, so very
27:33
Speaker 1: small were they above the heads so very active about
27:36
Speaker 1: the elbows and legs. It was really funny to see
27:39
Speaker 1: their legs going foreshortened. Humanity has no dignity. The little
27:45
Speaker 1: man on the pavement jumped comically, no doubt, with terror,
27:49
Speaker 1: as the bomb fell beside him. Then blinding flames squirted
27:53
Speaker 1: out in all directions from the point of impact, and
27:56
Speaker 1: the little man who had jumped became for an instant
27:59
Speaker 1: a flash of fire, and vanished, vanished absolutely. The people
28:04
Speaker 1: running out into the road took preposterous clumsy leaps, then
28:08
Speaker 1: flopped down and lay still with their torn clothes smoldering
28:11
Speaker 1: into flame. Then pieces of the archway began to drop,
28:16
Speaker 1: and the lower masonry of the building to fall in
28:19
Speaker 1: with the rumbling sound of coals being shot into a cellar.
28:24
Speaker 1: A faint screaming reached bert and then a crowd of
28:27
Speaker 1: people ran out into the street, one man limping and
28:30
Speaker 1: gesticulating awkwardly, he halted and went back towards the building.
28:35
Speaker 1: A falling mass of brickwork hit him and sent him
28:38
Speaker 1: sprawling to lie still and crumpled. Where he fell, dust
28:42
Speaker 1: and black smoke came pouring into the street and were
28:45
Speaker 1: presently shot with red flame. In this manner the massacre
28:49
Speaker 1: of New York began. She was the first of the
28:52
Speaker 1: great cities of the scientific age to suffer by the
28:55
Speaker 1: enormous powers and grotesque limitations of aerial warfare. She was
29:00
Speaker 1: its wrecked, as in the previous century endless barbaric cities
29:03
Speaker 1: had been bombarded, because she was at once too strong
29:06
Speaker 1: to be occupied and too undisciplined and proud to surrender
29:11
Speaker 1: in order to escape destruction. Given the circumstances, the thing
29:15
Speaker 1: had to be done. It was impossible for the Prince
29:18
Speaker 1: to desist and own himself defeated, and it was impossible
29:22
Speaker 1: to subdue the city except by largely destroying it. The
29:26
Speaker 1: catastrophe was a logical outcome of the situation created by
29:30
Speaker 1: the application of science to warfare. It was unavoidable that
29:34
Speaker 1: great cities should be destroyed. In spite of his intense
29:38
Speaker 1: exasperation with his dilemma, the Prince sought to be moderate
29:42
Speaker 1: even in massacre. He tried to give a memorable lesson
29:45
Speaker 1: with the minimum waste of life and the minimum expenditure
29:49
Speaker 1: of explosives. For that night, he proposed only the wrecking
29:53
Speaker 1: of Broadway. He directed the air fleet to move in
29:56
Speaker 1: column over the route of this thoroughfare, dropping bombs, the
29:59
Speaker 1: vague her land leading and so our burnt small ways,
30:03
Speaker 1: became a participant in one of the most cold blooded
30:06
Speaker 1: slaughters in the world's history, in which men who were
30:09
Speaker 1: neither excited nor except for the remotest chance of a
30:13
Speaker 1: bullet in any danger, poured death and destruction upon homes
30:17
Speaker 1: and crowds below. He clung to the frame of the
30:20
Speaker 1: porthole as the airship tossed and swayed, and stared down
30:24
Speaker 1: through the light rain that now drove before the wind
30:27
Speaker 1: into the twilight streets, watching people running out of the houses,
30:31
Speaker 1: watching buildings collapse and fires begin. As the airships sailed along,
30:37
Speaker 1: they smashed up the city as a child will shatter.
30:39
Speaker 1: At cities of brick and card below, they left ruins
30:43
Speaker 1: and blazing conflagrations, and heaped and scattered dead men, women
30:49
Speaker 1: and children mixed together as though they had been no
30:51
Speaker 1: more than moors or Zulus or Chinese. Lower New York
30:57
Speaker 1: was soon a furnace of crimson flames from which there
31:00
Speaker 1: was no escape. Cars, railways, ferries all had ceased, and
31:05
Speaker 1: never a light lit the way of the distracted fugitives.
31:08
Speaker 1: In that dusky confusion, but the light of burning he
31:12
Speaker 1: had glimpses of what it must mean to be down there, glimpses,
31:16
Speaker 1: and it came to him suddenly as an incredible discovery
31:19
Speaker 1: that such disasters were not only possible now in this strange,
31:24
Speaker 1: gigantic foreign New York, but also in London, in bun Hill,
31:29
Speaker 1: That the little island in the Silver Seas was at
31:32
Speaker 1: the end of its immunity, That nowhere in the world
31:35
Speaker 1: any more was there a place left where a small
31:37
Speaker 1: ways might lift his head proudly and vote for war
31:40
Speaker 1: and a spirited foreign policy, and go secure from such
31:44
Speaker 1: horrible things. End of Chapter six, Parts four, five, and six.
31:53
Speaker 1: Recording by William tom Cooe